Autumn Song

This was the last untasted sample from my Mandala Sheng sampler!

Unfortunately I did not take good notes as I drank it all day at work, but I did enjoy this one. Definitely some sweetness here, not too much bitterness, some light floral/fruit notes. Not as bold and brassy as some young sheng can be.

Brewed with a gaiwan. 10 second rinse. Steeping times: 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 30, 60, 90, 120.

I don’t have a palate for sheng, hence no rating.

A dry aroma of plums, grapes, lettuce an licorice. The wet aroma evolves: from green peppers to grapes to apples and honey. Sweet and juicy – I enjoyed this aroma throughout the session.

Early on and late into the session, the liquor is the color of grape juice, and in the middle of apple juice. Full-bodied, thin textured, clear, and crisp. The first infusion is too light in flavor, tasting of dried grass and grains. It is also unpleasantly sour. The flavor fully develops at infusion two. It is still grassy, though no sourness anymore. A little sweet now. The third infusion has more vegetal notes in addition to grass: zucchini and a reprise of green peppers. The grass lessens in the fourth and fifth infusions, which are also much sweeter – reminding me of grapes – with a hint of citrus.

Back to dried grass thereafter. The sweetness also slowly disappears. Lighter flavor. I’m left with a peppery aftertaste at infusion seven. This, too, goes away. The last infusions are very light and grassy, no peppers at all, and they have an airy mouthfeel.

My last sample from the raw sampler. This one tested my patience. That artichoke vegetal bitterness I usually get in sheng started on steep two and lasted for a bunch of steepings, rather than the usual 2-3. Once it faded, there were some nice citrus and green bell pepper notes, as promised by the description, but pretty mild in flavor overall. The texture was nice and smooth. I’m glad I got to try it, but again, I think Heart of the Old Tree wins out.

This is by far my favorite of the Mandala Sheng puer I have tried (which are the four that came in their recent sampler).

The initial steeping is very light and creamy with a taste that reminds me of golden raisins and something creamy like plain rice pudding (not the spiced kind). A couple steepings in the dried fruit flavor is more prominent while the creamy quality backs off. There is a very nice clean mouthfeel to this tea. In the third or fourth infusion there is a very noticeable vanilla note in the aftertaste.

Of the four samples in Mandala’s recent Aged Puer sampler pack (Heart of the Old Tree, Wild Monk, Wild Mountain Green, and this one) I may end up purchasing a brick of the Autumn Song to age. It seemed the most delicate of the bunch. Very smooth. I really enjoy it.

I flash infused this in a gaiwan, using only around 7-10 second steepings until around the fourth or fifth, at which point I started adding a few seconds each time.

UPDATE: Five months later, I finally had the extra money to buy one. I imagine myself having trouble saving this to age it. At only 100 g I’ll have to be careful to use it sparingly… or I could just be totally indiscriminate and buy another one for aging later, this one for drinking now. :P

I got this tea in a swap with a Pu-Erh expert, and it was my first dip into the lot, so perhaps I am grading this one a little too harsly.

My first notice was the large amount of sticks. I actually had to break some up to get them to fit into my cup. (like 3 inches long. I don’t even know how they fit into the bag).

Unfortunately I’m not a fish fan, the only sushi I can do is fully cooked, so the fish broth taste didn’t really work for me. There was a caramel menthol sweetness to it, and a smokey ness.

Reading the blurb on the website, this is a tea I would love to love, but unfortunately I can’t really see myself ordering any more in the future.

Updating my ranking to my new system.

Taste = 65
Price = 52.38
Representation = 75

New score of 64.12

Well, good morning to YOU, too, pretty tea.

First, I would like to say that I put my big girl pants on and broke into this cake yesterday, after hemming and hawing around for several days. It does seem kind of a shame to break up such a lovely and perfect thing as a tea cake, but I got some great advice from my tea friends about starting from the indentation in the back of the cake. This made it easy, and I used extra care, so the cake still looks perfect on the front. It’s all carefully wrapped back up now.

Anyways..

Method: 3.3 g, 3 oz, 198 degrees, 10 sec rinse, 10-15-20 seconds, ru kilk gaiwan & Dr. Who mug

Dry Leaf Aroma: This smells clean and pleasant. A little foresty, but not really earthy. More like trees after a rain.

Brewing Aroma: This has a distinctly apricot smell, like I found in the Heart of the Old Tree 2012, also from Mandala. There’s also a mineral note and a very slight hint of seaweed, but only when I sniff really hard. It’s mainly fruit and fresh tree smells.

Flavor: The 3 steeps indicated above were combined into one mug.

Maybe I will only drink shengs for the rest of my life. I really haven’t had enough of them to say that, but I don’t care. I just love this. There are so many flavors all up in yo face. Being a novice, it’s hard to pick them all out, but I’m having a great time making the attempt.

There’s fruit, then a little bitterness, then a little sweetness, then a little dryness.

MOAR! MOAR! ALL YOUR SHENG ARE BELONG TO US!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us

OOOOOH YEAH new pu’er from Mandala Tea! Love the name of this tea!

Very smooth! Also very interesting notes of lemon curd, fresh mint, bell pepper skin and floral – with a nice creamy body. Later on, a dry cheeked astringency appears which might be a little much if you aren’t into dryness or new to pu’er. No smokey notes.

I did a low temp at first, and followed what others did and ramped up the temperature at the 11th infusion.

Mega invigorating too! So much tea drunk going on here!

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2014-autumn-song-puer-mandala-tea-oolong-owl-tea-review/

sooooo i had this one yesterday and sadly i remember nothing in the midst of painting except that i had 8 or so steeps of this and was enjoying it thoroughly. Not great for other ppl as a review, but that tells me a bunch hahaha

Sticking my toe into the water of Sheng. I’m sure my score number is going to change, probably going up. Just want to get a few more under my belt so I can properly rate.

This stuff is pretty good. Took a leap of faith and ordered a whole cake on Garret’s suggestion.

I’m on infusion #11 and still getting this beautiful yellow liquor that has gotten sweeter with every steep.

There’s an underlying bitterness (more on the earlier steeps), kind of like the pith of a lemon. Not overwhelming, but provides that tannic cleanliness like in a good red wine.

Definitely getting some citrus zest too, and very very light menthol. Maybe a very light hint of smoke. Just delicious and very well balanced.

It’s just a zesty, tingly sort of thing. Really smooth. Based on this tea alone, I want to try more sheng. This is the kind of thing I can picture a Shaolin monk drinking by the side of a creek while he’s meditating.

A bit puzzled at the name of this tea, “Autumn Song 2014,” I am writing this in springtime 2014, it is not autumn yet. It was nice to get a sample of this tea with my order, however the sample I got contained a number of sticks, and the tea had a fishy taste and smell. I only brewed up 2 grams, gave it two rinses to break up the leaves. Given the fishy taste I wouldn’t want to brew any more of it.