Mandala Tea

I’m a big fan of dian hong! Morning Sun brews up a strong up which I like. I used roughly 8 oz of 200 F water for 1 heaping teaspoon. I wanted to be careful about the steeping time and did 90 seconds for the first steep. It was a strong, aromatic cup without much astringency. The amber color infusion tasted like honey, dark fruits, and malt. I could taste dark cherries, chocolate, and toasted walnuts.

From the first moment I cracked the bag, I knew I was going to like this tea. It smells sweet, floral and fruity. Tasting the first steep I got just a hint of cloves and lemon, with a buttery slightly sweet finish! The second and third steepings have more fresh, green flavors but retain their buttery goodness. There is a clean tannic finish that comes out especially in the second steeping.

I’ve been looking forward to trying this tea for a long time. I finally ordered a batch from Mandala! It smells like flowers and pineapples. It’s got a sweet orchid flavour to it. I tasted notes of cream, caramel, and tropical fruits! This tea is a special one to be sure.

Sipdown. I was never able to reproduce that great first impression.

It takes a couple of infusions to start to unfurl, but I was still finding unfurled oolong during later steeps. Steeps were gritty from ginseng powder and I felt that it overpowered the tea. Pretty sure I don’t like it as well as I thought. Sweet, almost overly so, eventually drying at end. Dropping my rating. 80

Followed Mandala’s directions for steeping-
1st steep 30 sec- leaves only started to unfurl, most still balled up. Taste- oolong with sweet chaser.
2nd 1min- some leaves still balled up, wet leaf smell much more like oolong, more creamy oolong up front sweet chaser comes out more as water cools
3rd 1 min 30 sec – lost end sweet, nice light oolong
4th 2min- sweet more in front, then creamy oolong, then sweet again
5th 2min 30sec- tea still good
I really like this tea.
I’m ready to move onto another tea, though I think I could get several more steeps out of this tea. Downside, filter of gravity steeper required thorough cleaning. I really need to get a gaiwan.

Sipdown 8 of 2015. Sample. Purchased 5/2014 – Finished 12/2015.

I have had a few Ripe Pu’er. Of the few that I have tried this is my favorite, but I am not sure I am going to be a ripe pu’er fan. I can’t get over the rubber taste I get out of it. For this one I did about 4 rinses and then started drinking it. What I did like about it was that it was creamy and it made me relaxed really relaxed. The flavor was slightly spicy/mint?

This is my favorite tea to brew for people who say they don’t like green teas. Why? Because this tea is /smooth/. It has a grassy flavor, but it doesn’t come off as bitter and is accompanied by a light nuttiness. The leaves are quite intact and look lovely as they steep, so it’s also a visually pleasing tea to brew in a glass teapot.

This is such a lifesaver! As a frequent tea drinker, I’ve ended up staining many cups/pots/etc., and no cleaning method I had tried had been getting rid of the stains until I gave this a try. It has gotten out every tea stain I have thrown at it, and since a little goes a long way, I won’t need to replace it for a while. I can’t recommend this highly enough to the avid tea drinker.

I don’t consider myself much of a fan of “dessert” teas, but this is a tea that can easily fool you into feeling like you’re drinking something much more indulgent. The sweet notes of caramel and coconut are not cloying or overpowering, and as they wear off in later infusions, they leave behind a pleasant floral scent. The leaves are /huge/ and quite intact, so leave a little room in whatever you use to brew it! This is a great tea for the uninitiated and one of my personal favorites from Mandala Tea.

I really enjoy this tea in the morning! The dry leaf consists of black tendrils spotted with gold. These twisted leaves carry a lovely fragrance of malt, dried cherries, and some chocolate powder. I grabbed a good sized amount and stuffed the warmed ruyao teapot. The warmed leaves open up and give off a strong sense of dark bitter sweet chocolate, some syrupy notes, and a dark woody undertone. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The brew begins light caramel colored and slowly becomes darker. The steeped leaves give a strong and robust scent of mahogany, dark cacao, and burnt sugar. The taste is fantastic. This drink begins with a smooth sweet sugar cane that covers a tangy and wood flavor. The brew gives off a brief sense of astringency and tannin with each sip. As the session progresses, the flavors become deeper and consists of heavier wood flavors mixed with malt. The reason I love this in the mornings is that it gives a wonderful qi pick-me-up feeling. I experience a soothing warming feeling with an eye opening sensation. I also note some neck prickling and hair rising affects. I really enjoy this tea; however, I’m not a big fan of the later steeping. I usually carry this brew up to about four maybe five steep sessions, and then I leave for the day. This is a great value tea to throw into the teapot!

https://www.instagram.com/p/_whn3TzGTQ/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

I’m not a big fan of this sheng as more of a personal taste thing, but it is still a nice sheng.

The notes are of tobacco, incense, tangy cedar and echos of smoke and camphor. Tasted like this pu’er might of been pretty smokey at one point. Later steepings I get some camphor and hint of fruityness. It’s quite complex and interesting, but I’m not a fan of the tobacco and cedar combo (I’m more of a sweeter sheng fan, at least as of this time)

A great, smooth black tea. It’s got a nice nutty bite to it that makes it stand out from other plain black teas. Great quality, much deliciousness, such tea!

I’m going to combine two reviews. In March 2015 I bought a cake of this tea and tasted it twice soon after delivery. I loved it. It had a light honeysuckle flavor, with underlying depth. Similar to a white tea on top but with wood/straw puerh character adding depth. Later steeps added some vanilla flavors. It was rich and had quite a bit of cha qi.

Fast forward to Dec 2015: I have stored this with other, stronger sheng since March at 60% RH. The tea has lost the lovely floral character that made it special, though has more classic puerh flavors that make it a good but not great tea. It is quite a bit lighter than my other teas so I’m not sure how it will age.

I initially rated the tea a 93. Now it is probably an 87. I blame my storage, since I had a 2011 in late 2014 that was delicious. I suspect that the down-side of that wonderful pumidor smell is that the teas exchange flavors. In theory this imparts richness, but it may also detract from the unique character of each tea (one reason why I don’t use my yixing pot very much). In the case of this tea, it was that delicate floral flavor that made the tea special.

From the Pu TTB

A really nice and mild young shou with notes of ripe fruit, mineral, mint/spice and cane syrup. Mandala always has top notch shou and this might be my favorite that I’ve tried from them

Holiday TTB

I’ve had Teavana’s ridiculously expensive Yellow Dragon and loved it, so I was excited to sample this one! It doesn’t disappoint. It steeps up to a clear golden color and smells like freshly-picked sweet corn. The flavor, though very light, is slightly reminiscent of corn too, slightly sweet and very buttery. Absolutely no bitterness or astringency. Definitely one I’d like to purchase when this sample runs out!

This is a very tasty ripe with a fair amount of fermentation flavor left. The fermentation flavor was somewhat unpleasant but not quite fishy. It was dark and thick in the early infusions. There were a variety of sweet notes and little bitterness at all. There were some notes of chocolate in there and it did develop a fruity flavor in later steeps. At only $31 it was a good value too. It is unfortunately now sold out. Don’t know if Mandala can get any more of this.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 120ml gaiwan with 10.3g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min. If I wasn’t at my caffeine limit I’m sure I could get at least a couple more steeps out of this.

This is the first sheng I’m trying from Mandala. :) I pulled a chunk out of the bag and it weighed 4.5g, and I have a 3oz gaiwan, so I decided to just go for it. I did a long 30sec wash with boiling water and then let the leaves sit for a few min to see if they would loosen up, which they did. It was still mostly in a big chunk, so for my first infusion I did boiling water again and a 15-20sec steep. Yiiikes, very bitter. So I dialed down to 90deg and tried a 10sec steep – still bitter. Then down to 80deg and did a series of 10-15sec steeps. At this point the bitterness was tolerable, but still a bit sharper than with other shengs I’ve tried. In one of the fairly early steeps I got a strong aftertaste of apricot, but that didn’t persist into later steeps. Then I started to lengthen the steeps a bit, and once I was up to 40sec or so, I turned the temperature up to 90deg. Suddenly the bitterness mostly dropped away, and a thick sweetness replaced it! Fascinating. So now I’m sticking with this temp and just adding 10sec or so with each steep. I’m glad I stuck with it. The body feeling with this is warm with an “awake but calm” kind of mental state – very pleasant. I’m glad I have enough in this sample to experiment with it some more, but certainly not feeling the need to run out and buy a cake of it. :)

i thought this tea was good. Thanks for the trade, curlygc!!! I acquired lots of oolong in the trade and TGY was one of them.

It tastes like cocoa butter and lilac. Yesterday, I loved it. This morning when I had my fifth steep (still strong) I didn’t like it as much, but I don’t blame the tea.

Overall, it’s a solid tea that is still strong on the 5th steep, so I look forward to the bit that I have left and how many steeps I can get.

this is the best youngest shou puerh i have ever had!:

when i smell the leaves dry, they smell musty.

when i smell the leaves wet, they smell like earth.

whe i smell the brewed tea, i smell mellow/smooth earth.

when i taste the brewed tea, i taste mellow/smooth earth and sweetness.

the color of the brewed tea is a chocolate brown color.

i rate this a 100 because its just lovely!

many thanks to sherri for this amazing sample.

http://shopmandalatea.com/2015-rama-lama-bulang.html

I had never tried a yellow tea before, so I thought I would give it a whirl. I am not usually the biggest fan of straight green tea, but I am developing a liking for it. This is similar to green tea without the bitterness that green tea can have sometimes. It is still fairly vegetal, buttery, and nutty.
I resteeped for 1,1.5,2 minutes. The vegetal notes seemed to turn creamier throughout the resteeps.