Mandala Tea

Mind blown! This tea is very fragrant, with notes of lilac and honeysuckle. One of the best teas I’ve tasted so far in my newly acquired taste for tea. Order some now!

Rambling for a minute first then will get to the tea. I’ve been trying to get my sample box under control. Sip down all the bits and pieces that I have. Was wanting to continue that tonight, but not in the mood for flavored “candy” tea. This was in that box. Garrett from Mandala generously included a sample of it with my last order. Have I mentioned how AMAZING, AWESOME, INCREDIBLE their customer service is? I’ve dealt with a lot of good, even great online customer service from the various tea companies, and Mandala stands out even from those great experiences. If the rest of the teas I ordered from them are anything like this one, I’m going to be a regular customer for a very long time.

I’ve never drank a plain raw pu’erh before (I know there are several in my cupboard, I just ordered a few to see what I thought and hadn’t gotten around to trying any until tonight).

OMG!!!!!!!!!! I don’t have the words/vocabulary/palate to explain how good this is. I didn’t really have any idea how to go about steeping it western style, it looked like a green tea to me, so I did 80C for 2 minutes. Either I got lucky or this tea could be even better than this (nahhhhhh that’s NOT possible). I like the ripe pu’erhs that I’ve tried. They are earthy, musty, bold, kind of in your face. This has the same flavor profile but is much more delicate and subtle. I LOVE this.
If you are nervous about all the nasty things you’ve heard about pu’erh or if you have tried a shu and couldn’t get past the “dirt” taste, I recommend you find something like this. Great Great tea.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that steeps 2,3, and 4 of this were equally amazing. Not much difference between 1,2,3 steep 4 has lost some of the Pu’erh earthiness and is more mellow, but still good. I’ve had a really good night with this tea.

This tea just helped me rock my finals. It’s no secret I have a lot of love for the folks over at Mandala, so last week I emailed Garret about a new thermos and some tea to go in it. Every morning this last week I popped about a teaspoon of this in the bottom of the new thermos, filled it up with water, and then topped it off when it started getting low.

Like the cake form of this tea, this stuff is good. This is really sweet, slightly sour, and not a very strong young sheng. I found even with keeping the leaves essentially steeping all day, it never gets overpowering either.

And if you need to get through finals week, this tea will give you a nice buzz. :)

I ordered a few of the more popular teas that I found on this site, and end up with some good teas. The taiwanese do Oolong best…somehow.

I thought that the Chinese started this…well its a nice tea even though it has some sweetness that I am not used to in it. I would drink it with newcomers or folks not used to Oolong yet, as it is easy to like but not the finest.

This is gonna sound very weird. I woke up this morning and in my head or something in the air smelled just like this tea. Later in the afternoon I remembered this and chipped some off the cake to enjoy in my new Mandala tea thermos.

Drool sooo good! It’s like I’m drinking autumn – I progress through campfire wood and hickory smoke notes that melt into creamy stone fruit and persimmon notes. Since I just put leaves into a tea tumbler glass and sipping away at it, the flavor is getting quite strong, but its still really good. Overall better steeped gongfu style, but tea glass style is excellent too!

100! UH OH!

This tea is amazing! Steeped in a glass gaiwan, it was beautiful to watch the cake chunk turn from dark leaf into fall colours.

Great, complex notes that change every infusion: smokey, hickory, creamy, apricot, persimmon, apple, and grassy sweet hay. I love the persimmon notes, but the smokeyness was very enjoyable too!
No bitterness or crazy pu’er funk! I got a slight astringency in later infusions, but that was cool. Very tempted to try this tea iced, but I treasure this cake.. maybe when I buy another one!

Wild Monk was a memorable experience for me, more inspiring of a tea session than crazy pu’er party time, which I get from ripe pu’er. I’m more of a green/white tea drinker so this raw cake just danced perfectly with me!

Full review and pictures of me butchering my first pu’er cake at my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/mandala-wild-monk-raw-puer-2012-tea-review-and-experience/

Tea lesson: Buy a pu’er knife or things get really messy.

I have been away from tea—and Steepster— for quite a while. I missed everyone here and am happy to be back to my tea loving ways. I am incredibly sad that this tea has been retired. I just used my last bit at work. It gets better as it ages—as pu’er is known to do. More chocolaty and creamier if that is even possible. It gave me that happy tea drunk feeling while at work. I am not exaggerating by saying I would give up just about anything to get more of this tea.

I’m in the middle of my yearly Anne of Green Gables—and Emily and Pat and Kilmeny and Jane —reread. It’s my favorite series of books and I have had a reread every year since 95. I figured this time around I would accompany my reading with a brew or twelve of my favorite tea. Today it’s Special Dark’s turn and there is something special about drinking it while reading my favorite book. It just tasted better when reading about Anne’s adventures.

It is almost 6am here in good old New York and I am unable to sleep. The thoughts just keep coming. It’s one of those nights. But what I am doing is sipping Special Dark. I save it for occasions that are particularly stressful because it is a happy place for me. I bought fancypants honey so I decided to add a touch to the first steep and it definitely brought out the creamy notes in the tea. But for me, it adds a little too much sweet even with the little bit I added. This is one of those teas that really doesn’t need any adornments. It’s perfect the way it is.

P.S. I have fallen off the coffee wagon. I was gifted a Keurig for Christmas and it was bad. But good. I can love them both, right?
P.P.S-I blame my hockey team.

I had a chocolate craving this weekend. It doesn’t happen often but when it does…it gets bad. I decided that instead of mainlining chocolate bars to have Special Dark instead. I did a rinse and then a 7 minute steep. It’s definitely recommended. Dark chocolate with almost a hazelnut type background. I love it which is interesting considering I HATE Nutella.

I’ve been going on and on about Special Dark pu’er. It’s probably gotten quite annoying. I am happy to say that it lived up to every single one of my expectations. I like it better than the Phatty Cake and Bu Lang Gong Ting and they are my benchmark pu’ers.

1st Steep-30 seconds
Garret said it would taste like chocolate but, honestly, I was a little skeptical. Dry it smells a bit like cocoa powder. I am not kidding about that. Not even the Hershey kind but the expensive Valrhona powder. And the most amazing thing is that it tastes like cocoa when brewed too. I didn’t put any sugar in it at first so it tasted like unsweetened hot cocoa with a really rich cocoa. I added a touch of raw sugar and it really brought out the chocolate flavor.

2nd Steep-45 seconds
Still very chocolaty with a creamy finish. Almost like a good chocolate mousse.

3rd Steep-1 minute
Milk chocolate. Some spice is coming through but not much yet. Is it sane to say a tea is completely blowing my mind?

4th Steep-2 minutes
Suddenly it’s back to dark, dark chocolate again and there is cinnamon on the finish. Mexican hot chocolate? Yes, please.

5th Steep-3 minutes
And just like that, the chocolate has left the building. It’s sort of butterscotchy. The chocolate isn’t gone really. It’s there in some sips but the butterscotch is really dominating.

6th Steep-5 minutes
Honey and maybe a bit of brown sugar. Still so smooth and tasty. So happy I have 4 oz of it.

7th Steep-Overnight
I know. Overnight sounds crazy and it is. I dropped the leaves in my tea thermos and left it to steep overnight. Can’t say that the result was bad. It tasted like whipped cream and caramel. Not bad at all.

This is the smoothest, tastiest, loveliest pu’er I have ever tried. Pu’ers are typically earthy but this has none of that. It’s starts out smooth and sweet and it finishes that way. Seriously, put a blindfold on and you think your drinking hot cocoa or, at least, chocolate flavored tea. It’s really one unique tea.

And this tea also proved that “tea drunk” does, in fact, exist.

First off let me say I love this Pu-erh!!!! It started off smoky and creamy on the first infusion. Subsequent infusions lost the smoke and got really smooth and creamy. Highly drinkable! I am on the 5th infusion and its still going strong, going to finish it off today. I am really impressed, the only downside is its only 100grams. I want more!!!!! This is definately a keeper and must have in the cupboard at all times.

Phatty cake! What a great pu’er! The highlights of this tea is it is easy to drink, full flavored, bold with notes of earth, chocolate, wild mushroom, spice, raisin, sweet, smoke, and mineral, all developing and changing with further infusions.

I should really buy this cake, I made another order recently for some stuff on sale and pass on the cake. Next order then! I had a really good experience with Mandala teas so I’ll be ordering again for sure!

To read my full review aka Oolong Owl’s pu’er tea drunk party time, check out the blog entry http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/mandala-phatty-cake-from-mandala-tea-tea-review/

This tea is impressive – its a doppleganger, bringing forth many familiar tastes and combining them into something quite enjoyable. The first few infusions taste like a certain Laoshan Black… hmmmm… So much so that I did a double take to make sure I had put the right tea in my gaiwan. Yep! Not to be overshadowed by the aforementioned steepster juggernaut, this tea can certainly hold its own. The primary flavor is “Roasty” but there is something else there… a fruity/nutty note reminiscent of an assam… and there is a subtle background of roasted florals and buttery grain to remind you of its former, greener oolong days.

Initially I was quite surprised at this oolong. It is quite dark and the flavor profile really falls closer to the true black tea spectrum in my mind. This is not a bad thing, just not what I had expected from an oolong. This tea is capable of multiple infusions, trading the strong roasted taste to more subtle autumn fruits towards the later infusions.

Quite enjoyable in the Gaiwan. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to experience a dark roasted oolong. My only criticism here would be a relatively thin mouthfeel… while hard to put into words, compared to similar tasting teas, this one is lacking a bit in texture.

I’m looking forward to trying the lighter roasted version of this next and will probably end up ordering more of whichever one I like best. So far, the Dark Roast does not disappoint!

Received this as a free sample a while back, and wrote out a lengthy review on paper. However, said paper went MIA. I waited a while for it to turn back up, but well… it didn’t. (Nothing escapes the gaping maw known as my desk! MWAHAHAHAHAAH!!!) So, here’s what I remember:

It was delicious! Very sweet and creamy with fruit and pastry flavors. what it reminded me of most were the “pasteles de guayaba” that I used to get with my grandparents in downtown Tampa. It’s hard to believe that this tea is unflavored! I love milk oolongs, and this one was very unique. :)

Mmmm, good oolong. Thanks for giving me this one forever ago Dinosara! I have one cup left :)

Wow, another amazing oolong from my swap with Dinosara! This one is extremely smooth and sweet and lightly vegetal. Everything I like in an oolong :)

I have been in the midst of a very stressful time. To calm myself I drank the samples that Garret sent me with my birthday order.

1st Steep-30 seconds
Garret obviously knows my tea tastes very well because I loved this tea at first steep. It was smoky but, again, not that heavy lapsang smoke but a sweeter more pleasant smoke.

2nd Steep-45 seconds
Very mildly smoky. There’s also a nice leathery note. Sweet on the finish. It’s getting that pipe smoke taste.

3rd Steep-1 minute
The leathery note is still there with the sweet finish. There is also a bit of clove spice. Very nice.

4th Steep-1.30 minutes
So very smooth with a vanilla note. Not exactly sweet but more of a nutty type of vanilla. My favorite steep so far.

5th Steep-2 minutes
Vanilla buttercream. That’s about as close as I can describe this one. It was sweet vanilla with a nice buttery note.

I had to give up on this one earlier than I wanted to. My teapot got shuffled into the sink while I was reserving my leaves. But I really liked this tea. Very much. I really loved the sweeter later steeps which is odd for me considering I tend to gravitate towards smoky teas. When I was planning my Mandala order, it came down to this one or a Yong de Organic cake and I picked the Yong de. I don’t necessarily regret it but I will be buying a cake of this one in the soontime.

This was my other free sample from Mandala, and it is also officially the last tea in my cupboard (#–7)!! Of course, I skipped a few teas here and there for different reasons, but I have once again sipped-through my entire cupboard. And it took me 3 less weeks than last year! Once again it was really fun, and reminded me of all the teas I have forgotten. But I never know exactly what to drink after I’m done with this.

Anyway, I thought about saving this tea to have at a gongfu session, but then I just decided to drink it. Sorry Equusfell. :) I had a little more than I would normally use for my 12 oz cup, so I steeped it a little shorter to compensate.

I had a sample of this tea something like two years ago, and reading my note I can say that I found it much the same as I did back then. It smells really sweet and floral, with a bit of butteriness, like a really good TGY. But the flavor is more vegetal and less floral, with some butter but not much cream. A tiny hint of sweetness comes out as it cools, but it is still predominantly vegetal, a little like snap peas but not quite. Overall a pretty tasty tea, but when I drink it I just kind of wish I was drinking a TGY instead.

Thanks to Azzrian for this sample! I am always interested in new oolong varietals, especially unroasted ones from Fujian/Anxi.

The steeped tea smells floral and buttery but also with a good helping of vegetal. The flavor is nice, very buttery. Slightly buttered vegetables, if they were also steamed with flowers to impart a floral note. The florals are especially prominant in the aftertaste. Almost sweet but not quite. I am quite enjoying this one! It is a really great example of the kind of oolong that are my favorite. At least that is one category I seem to have gotten pretty figured out.

I read the reviews here, and decided that Mandala’s milk oolong would be my first foray into this type of oolong tea. I am convinced I made the right choice.

I prepared this tea gongfu style in a 130ml porcelain gaiwan.
Water temperature: 195 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rinse: 10 seconds, with about 50ml of water. … I drank it. It smelled too good! Tasted like buttery corn on the cob.

1st steep: 15 seconds. The liquor was clear and a very pale shade of yellow. It tasted grassy/vegetal, with a nuttiness and a slight floral note. I can see where it gets the name “milk” from; its mouthfeel was very creamy from the start. Breathing in after the cup was finished, I felt very refreshed.

2nd steep: 20 seconds. Yellow liquor; smelled of butter, grass, and some kind of nut. It tasted… yellow. Grassy, with almost a pineapple-y fruitiness. The tea had a very creamy texture. On the in-breath after the cup was done, I tasted a minty spinach, or maybe kale.

3rd steep: 25 seconds. Wow, those leaves opened up! The liquor looked like liquid gold! It was thick and creamy, and tasted of butter cream, with something else… citrus? The in-breath was minty, and lingered for a while.

4th steep: 30 seconds. Somewhere, there is a man, woman, or family, who grew this for my enjoyment. The liquor was still golden, and it smelled like a cross between cookies baking and brown-sugar-and-butter frosting. The taste was heavenly – the best yet. At first, vanilla, with milk at the back. After swallowing, there was a light vegetal taste on the sides, but with no astringency. This… this is like drinking a cloud.

I’ll spare the details of steeps 5 through 9, but I will say that this tea would not give up! After nine steeps and about a liter of water, I decided to steep for four minutes, to see what the leaves had left in them. All that was good and glorious about this tea, all of the flavors, smells, and after-tastes came back in one delicious cup. The six-minute steep has not been disappointing, either.

If you’re on the fence about this tea, buy it. You won’t regret it.

My journey into puer began with this cake and i love it! When i compared it to some Taetea cakes, it was good for the value, but not as complex

Pfff, a green Oolong that tastes like cream and candy? I wish! But hey, I may as well give it a try and see what all this is about.

That smell from my cup on the first steeping is floral and a bit fruity as I’d expect but there’s something else coming up underneath that I’ve never smelled in a tea before, it’s too covered up by the other smells, but it just might be that milky smell this tea is known for.

First and second sips are fruity with a little bit of woodiness to it. It’s good and has a creamy texture, but I’m really not getting that milky flavor — I knew it wasn’t possible! But then on the third sip, right when I was feeling comfortable with the average oolong flavors, it hits me. Toffee? No way, it can’t be! I had to take another sip to be sure, and when I got that same toffee note I just about jumped out of my chair with joy (I’m a huge toffee fan if you couldn’t guess at this point :P ). Every sip from here on is incredibly creamy and sweet, like a really smooth toffee. I can’t believe I didn’t taste it at first, because this tea is dessert level sweet!

Second steeping is more toffee but with notes of vanilla and white chocolate. I’m sure after enough steepings this oolong will evolve into something else, as most do, but I honestly couldn’t care less. The sweet toffee flavor of these first two steepings is enough to make this a staple that I’ll always want to have on hand no matter what kind of flavor it takes on later.

I had been looking forward to trying a White Night/Moonlight for a while, since it sounded very interesting and has the characteristics of some of my favorite teas. It didn’t disappoint!

Dry leaves: Cream colored tips and chocolaty brown leaves. The dry aroma is similar to dian hong, but slightly more muted with a mildly lavender scent and a slight sheng pu’erh mustiness.

Early steeps: Mild and sweet with flavors of lavender, yam, and white grape with slight marine qualities. The taste reminds me of a very soft golden needle, but has a mouthfeel more like a sheng pu.

Later steeps: A sweet greenness appears that reminds me of guapan or Taiwanese oolongs. Slight mushroom flavor, and VERY creamy.

This tea had a WHOLE LOT of qi for me. Very warm, sleepy, and medatative, and strong feelings along my eyebrows, forehead, and spine. I haven’t been this tea-drunk in quite a while :P