Mandala Tea

Sipdown!

First off, I’d like to say that all of the black teas I’ve tried from Mandala have been awesome! Thank you Garret!

This one is very tasty, with a thick & resinous mouthfeel (like a good hashish…sorry, but it’s true. I remember that feeling, even though I’ve been clean & serene for over 29 years, LOL). I steeped the first cup for 3 min, 2nd cup for 4. Now I’m headed out the door, nicely alert & VERY present!

This tea is beautiful to look upon, & brews into a rich & resinous cup of tea whose rustic flavor reminds me somewhat of masa harina & fire roasted green chili’s. Very savory, but also sweet in it’s own way. Tasty.

Welcome to day 28 of little terri’s Ultimate Sipdown Extravaganza!
My first sipdown of the day is Mandala’s Black Beauty, which I’ve already reviewed numerous times. It’s rich & delicious, & today just for fun I tried steeping it gongfu style. It was nice to see the flavors build, however it’s not one of those teas with layers of flavor, so it pretty much tasted the same throughout: Delicious.
With this one, I prefer the longer steeps of 3 & 5 min, where it is at it’s best in my opinion, but it is also very nice with 1/2/& 5 minutes. Anyway, it is a sipdown, but it’s also on the list of teas to restock when I place my next order from Garret.
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Here’s another tasty black tea, 1 cup away from a sipdown.
I’ll drink that final cup later this week. This one will make it back into my collection when I place my next Mandala order.

I really do love this tea! First off, just looking at the leaf is mood enhancing, as it is a beautiful reddish black, with some orangish tips here & there. The warmed aroma is heavenly. The tea itself is so mouth filling & satisfying, with a long linger.
Today I went with 4 minutes, with a 6 minute resteep. Usually I go with 3 min with a 5 minute resteep, which I like better. Next time I need to try 1, 2 & 4 minute steeps, which is actually what Garret recommends. I’ll need to get more of this…again! :)

Ironically, & purely by coincidence (although there are no coincidences), I drank this one the last time I woke up ridiculously early. Anyway, this one is, without a doubt, my favorite black tea from Garret! It is absolutely delicious, & deliciously complex, with a rich sweet dark chocolate quality that so many of us love.

What goes together better than hot tea & a long hot bath?

I think this is my favorite of all of Mandala’s Black tea offerings. It is SO sweet, rich, & delicious. So satisfying. I’ve written several reviews of it already, so I won’t go on & on, except to say I’m grateful to enjoy a cup, & I should do so more often.

OMG, this is good!! Imagine a bug bite tea, with it’s hint of coriander & honey sweetness. Now make the base of that tea some really awesome chocolatey type, something earthy & bold. You will have this. It is rich & sweet, and ridiculously smooth!! I want MOAR!!!
And it’s a sipdown…sigh…
AND NOW I need to step away from my computer & do some actual work

I’m backtracking. After breakfast my day got busy. First there were a few students, & then this evening I played a 3 hour gig at a retirement home.
Somewhere in between those 2 things, I enjoyed a lovely cup of this sweet tea. I wish I had more to say, but I have written several reviews regarding this tea already, so that’s it for now.

I woke up at 5:30. I’ve been awake ever since. I usually wake up at 7:30 during the week, which I consider early, so 5:30 sucks. I tried to go back to sleep, but Ms. Theresa wouldn’t shut up:
“You keep saying you want to get up earlier so you can get more things done. So let’s get a move on!”
She has a list too!
So I got up, did my Yoga & weights. Then I watered the garden, which takes forever. Then I had breakfast. Now I’m enjoying the 2nd steep of this tea. Yum! It is honey sweet, but there is also a chocolaty flavor, & a very creamy mouth. Perfect.
…sigh…

This is a lovely lovely tea. It has a very sweet honey like nature, some maltiness, & with hints of coriander & chocolate in the background, it’s like a breakfast dessert tea, or a nice afternoon tea to relax with. The flavors have a richness to them that is mouth filling, & even kind of creamy feeling. It’s really very good!

First tea of the morning, enjoyed while fixing breakfast.
First steep = 4min
2nd steep = 5min
Both were delicious, smooth, with a nice thick sensation, flavors of Malt, a little chocolate, & that hint of coriander. And NO astringency! Upon finishing the 2nd cup, I have a tingle on the tip of my tongue & thickness along the sides. A wonderful way to start the day!

Sipdown
What? Already?
Sadly, yes it is true. I split this oz with Sil, & I’m sending a sample from my half to TastyBrew, so this is it.
However, I will re-order this one, as it is very tasty. I went with the western brewing parameters & the flavor is thick, rich, & a little spicy with essence of chocolate, caramel, & coriander. A delicious & unusual black tea, with the earthiness of a Qimen, but it’s own unique flavor.

This is an interesting tea.
I think the name Black Beauty is appropriate, as this tea has that characteristic taste of those teas which have been bitten by the tea leaf hoppers & are given names like Oriental Beauty (an oolong). It is a mild coriander-like flavor in the background that seems to distinguish these kinds of teas, whether oolong or black (at least to my taste buds. Of course, I could be totally off base! LOL).

So this one reminds me strongly of Mi Xian Black, one of Butiki’s teas. It’s has a honeyed sweetness, a chocolatey thick mouthfeeling, & there is a little earthiness to it like a Keemun as well.
Very tasty, very smooth, really a lovely afternoon tea for me :)

First sipdown of the day, this is such a rich & satisfying black tea! I’ll have to start thinking about a Mandala order again soon :)
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Once again, I stayed up way too late, but it was fun! I started playing my harp around 10, & played until about 1:30, just savoring a mix of pieces I hadn’t played for awhile: A harp sonata, some debussy, & a few other things, plus reading through some pieces that I’ve had here for awhile, but haven’t learned yet. I think it’s important to be able to demonstrate pieces for your students, especially for the more advanced ones, & to at least familiarize myself with the ones I don’t play. Most harpists send their students to Youtube or audio recordings to become familiar with these pieces, & I use that tool also, because the truth is, unless you’re planning on putting a concert, it’s a lot of work to maintain every advanced piece you’ve ever played! Most of my gigs these days tend towards jazz, but I still love every piece I’ve ever known, & I play a lot of them as wedding preludes, but some of them are kind of way out there, so it’s good once in awhile to play through them, ironing out the rough spots. Plus, I just love playing the harp anyway, & there are so many amazing pieces to play. It’s always a treat just to play for myself, with no audience, except the universe.

Not much new to say about this tea. It really is tasty, & I enjoyed it, but that was hours ago!

I stayed up way too late, & then I woke up way too early! At 5am I kept hearing this gnawing & scratching sound. I also heard it last week one morning. I kept trying to go back to sleep, but finally just resigned myself to getting up. I located where I was hearing the sound, & at first I thought maybe a mouse was inside my wall, but it sounded too big, & I realized that maybe it’s something scratching around on my roof, because my room is an attic room, & it was in a roof corner kind of place.

So I banged on the wall, & it stopped for a second, then started up. I banged again, same thing. I banged a bunch & it made a weird noise. That’s when I realized it was probably a raccoon. My daughter has had 2 racoons dig out sections of roofing on their house to make a place to sleep, & the area on my roof that it was at is basically sheltered from 2 sides forming a corner, with an oak tree above it.

Lucky the coon moved on, and I’m really hoping it won’t try again. I love raccoons, & I love that there are lots of them in my neighborhood (along with foxes, hawks, etc), but I don’t want it to destroy my roof!

To hear the wierd sound the coon made, which turns out to be a ‘purr’:
http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Raccoon_Sounds_audio

So this tea has been a welcome addition to my way too early morning: bold, rich, a little sweet, & as it cools it gets a little grapey.

This is a decent black tea. I’m having a hard time getting motivated today. That’s the price you pay for being self-employed. I woke up early enough, was all set to do my yoga, & ended up goofing off on my ipad for at least 30 minutes: steepster, FB, etc. I finally got my yoga done, made brekky, & now I’m goofing off again.

“But”, little terri says, “We’ve been working super hard for weeks!”
“Yes”, Ms Theresa replies, “and we’re not done yet! Don’t forget, we have the Winter Solstice concert Saturday night, with Ceremony of Carols again, & we have to play 3 solos, including one we haven’t even made up yet! Get to work.”
Ms. Theresa has spoken. I need more tea.
The good new is, I love my job!

Ignore the rating, as I haven’t quite figured out how to post a tea & not rate it s on the app.

Delicious & perfect firmly morning drive to gig & 4 this morning! Now back to playing, my break is over.

Sipdown!
This is a nice straight forward cup, rich & flavorful,smooth & mellow.

I’m really enjoying this tea today. I steeped it for 3 minutes, & then re-steeped for 5. Both were delicious! This has a really nice dark flavor & is seriously smooth, honestly today it is reminding me somewhat of Premium Taiwanese Assam, because of the really smoothness & even-ness of it, but of course it is different. The depth of this tea is very bassy, & I think it would especially appeal to coffee drinkers.
And black tea lovers like me.

This is a lovely earthy tea that is bold but smooth. There are no sharp edges to this tea: no super bright brass, no overly wine-like flavors. But that isn’t to say that this tea lacks texture or flavor, as there is a nice yunnan-type fullness, a rich slightly musky & malty taste that I happen to enjoy, & a pleasant sweetness.

I’m just getting around to posting some teas. I had a really nice morning session of journaling & doing some energy work, then a cup of this tea to enjoy while my first student came at 9:30. This is a nice earthy tea, nothing overly special, but also not requiring too much attention. Just a nice savory cup to start my day, & that’s good enough for me. :)

I want to start off by saying that Garret is awesome! I’ve never met him in real life, of course, but I can tell that he is an awesome guy. He always throws a little something extra (really, more than a little!) in the box, with a personalized note (not just “thanks for buying more tea”), AND his teas are tasty! I loiter on his site often, building up shopping carts, & then making myself close them because I already have a ridiculous amount of tea here. There is a very special tea set on his site that I’ve been fawning over for quite some time (& struggling right now to not go put it in my cart…aughghghg….it’s just so… lovely….I…want…)

So last friday in my tea buying frenzy (you know that saying, “No one can eat just one?” Of course, they are referring to potato chips, but it translates for me to not being able to place just one order for tea…Yeah, I can hold off for months, but like a binge drinker, which I was long ago, once the wall falls & I place that one order, lookout!), I ordered a lovely selection of black teas from Mandala, because face it, black tea is my true love & will forever be.

I enjoy Keemun. It’s a really nice grounding kind of tea for me, with an earthiness that leans slightly towards a shu, & a real ‘even’ kind of flavor. Some Keemuns lean towards smokiness. This one isn’t particularly smokey, at least not today. Some teas slap you in the face with bright edges, bold bass notes, astringency, or whatever. This isn’t one of those teas. Don’t get me wrong, I love my bold Assams, my rich Yunnans, but some mornings I want a quiet Keemun. It’s mildly sweet & soothing, it isn’t outgoing, its…damn…it’s gone!
resteep…