Mandala Tea

Gongfu Cha 15, 25, 35..
Slight cocoa note at first, which turned to ripe stone fruit in subsequent brewings. Also, some lemon rind and apricot. Lots of apricot and Santa Rosa plum or pluot on the palate with a nice firm texture.

Gongfu cha 15, 20, 40…
This is a pretty tea. It has very intense, exotic aromas of butter rum, vanilla and marshamallow; almost like a pina colada. It is a clean cup with some grassy flavors + white chocolate and finishes with slight apricot. it has a very slight bitterness on the end. This tea is less impressive on the mouth than it is on the nose.

Gongfu Cha 15, 25, 35…
This is the 2015 version
Pretty floral aroma chamomile, wet hay, cocoa powder. Full, round robust cup. No bitterness, but lots of texture. I could just drink this stuff all day.

Flash steeping this is giving me solid color, strong taste, and constant enjoyment.
This is a wonderful ripe tea for sure :)
Just between the first three steeps you can tell this one is calling for MUCH more of your time. Thankfully I am willing to oblige!

I had a challenging day at work. Came home, looked at my tea stash and thought – I don’t want to make a decision. So I reached into my sample box and randomly pulled one out. When I saw this, my first reaction was ugggggg, and my second was – at least it came from Garret. For those that don’t really know me, let me explain. I want to like sheng, really I do. I keep buying samples, and I keep trying but it seems that the more I fall in love with shou the more I dislike sheng. The vast majority of the ones that I’ve tried have fallen into two categories – really green and bitter or dirty stagnant swamp water. And then I run into one like this……. if all sheng were like this I would drink more of it.
This is fantastic!!!!!!!!! It tastes like sheng…whatever that taste is….. a little green, a little smokey, a little earthy, clean. This one is darker than most I’ve had. It’s pretty sweet, it’s really good. If anyone out there is like me…..not liking the bitter greenness of sheng, I encourage you to try this.
Thank you so much Garret for including this sample in one of my orders.

While I have never ordered from Mandela, I take everyone’s word about how good their teas are. This tea produces a smell similar to the yellow pu’erh cake I have; which is intense. On my tenth steep right now as I write this and I think I have a grasp on my feels for this tea. The first few steeps were a bit stronger and bitter but then I started to flash steep instead of using my 10s steeps for sheng. This helped out a lot. Unfortunately, it just isn’t as smooth as I would like it to be. What makes this appealing is that I do want to keep steeping it. I will continue to steep this tonight and be thankful that this sheng isn’t another that loses my interest after steep 6 or 7.

Drowning myself 6-26-15 #1

The title of this tea had me thinking it was going to be real brisk and dark, however what I found was this had a typical color for a ripe pu’erh. The taste is quite nice, but there is some dry notes that come the first few steeps. I did flash brew this one (5s roughly) and found a great liquid to come about from it, but for my own taste for ripe this just wasn’t something I craved enough to put a cake in my wishlist. Thanks to whoever gave me a sample, this gave me 11 nice strong steeps!

I was drinking this yesterday… but sadly I stopped at steep 5 because I was pu’d out.
This had a deep complex flavor to it that makes me wish that I gave it a few more hot baths, but I’m still learning my limits on teas and types per day (which seems to be about 20 cups per type day before I’m bored/tired of it).

Big thanks and also big apologies to Sil. She put this one in the GCTTB 3 for me at my request and I am just getting to it now. I have been wanting to try this one for a long time and I wanted to make sure I had enough dedicated time to really give it a good try.

So most of you here on steepster know that I just don’t like pu’erh. I have tried many a tea and know what I do and do not like. The problem is, that I really, really want to like pu’erh. I just don’t :( So I wanted to give this one a try as it is so highly rated here on steepster as well as elsewhere in the tea universe.

I brewed this one as per the recommended instructions on the packaging. 1TBSP per 8 oz boiling water, first steep of 30 seconds. The brewed tea is quite dark. It has a gentle sweet smell. I am getting hints of wet moss as well as dried wheat noodles. I know that must sounds super appetizing. It tastes quite thick and creamy. There are very slight notes of dark chocolate, like 85% cocoa, but the strongest flavour I am getting is wet black soil. As it cools more, the “earthy” types notes become stronger.

For the second steep, I added 15 seconds as per the recommendations. It brewed up very dark, just like the first steep. The smell of the brewed tea is the same as the first steep. The flavour profile is also the same as the first steep but the liquor is not as thick.

For the third steep, I again added 15 seconds as per the recommendations. It brewed up noticeable less dark than the first two steeps. I found the scent to be much more earthy. There is a slight mushroom scent to it I think. The taste is again much more earthy. Decomposing leaves, I am getting that slight mushroom flavour, just like in the scent. There is no sweetness to this steep, as well as no cocoa flavour.

I did not attempt a fourth steep, even though the description on the tea packaging states this tea can get as many as 4 steeps.

Overall, the answer is still that I just don’t like pu’erh. I am confident enough in all of the teas that I have tried to be able to say that. I just don’t like the taste/flavour profile in pu’erh tea. I am happy to have had the opportunity to try this tea as it is so highly rated, so I know it is just not the teas I have tried.

I always hate those long, drawn out posts that go on and on about the different steeps, so I’m going to make this fairly abbreviated and let the pictures speak for themselves.

I gave the pu an initial rinse and dumped it. Then the first steep was 30 seconds. This steep was super dark, a little bitter, notes of leather and tobacco. I decided to dump this one too and go with a shorter steep (15 seconds) this time. The second steep was delicious. Strong dark tea flavor, hints of leather but very pleasant and WHOA is it possible that I already have a tea buzz?

Full review and photos: https://tealover.net/2015/06/special-dark-ripe-puer-2006-mandala-tea/

Tea drunk off of this, more tomorrow.

This was a very yummy Chinese green taste was buttery smooth with some vegetal in the background but not overpowering at all!

This tea came very, very close to beating Wild Monk as my favorite offering from Mandala Tea. The notes of vanilla and mega floral sweetness were a real surprise after an astringent first couple of steeps. Definitely worth checking out!

Tobacco aroma, like every other sheng pu’er I’ve encountered. One short rinse, then short steeps (10 secs) @190. There must be something about pu’er that just isn’t for me. When I read reviews and folks are describing all these interesting and different flavors, and all I ever get is tobacco, it’s depressing. But on the upside, there are an infinite number of varieties of tea out there for me to explore.

I’m on my fourth steep of this now (160F/3min), and I swear the hay note has transformed into coconut. The kind of sugary coconut you might get from the Hawaiian McDonald’s Haupia Pies. I liked the hay honey-jam of the first couple steeps but baked/fried coconut cream is a special class of friend.

Thanks, OMGsrsly, for bringing this over for me to try!

Am I just now trying this one, that I removed from MzPriss’s teabox a while back? Well, at least it’s a pu-erh, the only tea that ages well. I was reminded how much I love ripe pu-erh when I tried another one the other day. Mandala, you’re great, but this one doesn’t match the chocolate of the other. I like em strong, better than coffee. The leaves even looked similar (very long rather than tiny leaves crammed in a cake) as well as both being from 2012. However, with this one, the brew basket looked half full as the other one, though I’m pretty sure I was using the amount of leaves I should have. The chocolate of the other probably came from SO. MANY. LEAVES. This isn’t a bad pu-erh by any means, but watery tasting compared to that chocolate explosion of the other day. I would COMPLETELY agree with the description of this one (though I’ve never had sugar cane, so I can’t compare that note): “Light and silky. Creamy milk chocolate with a nutty background, hints of cedar, sugar cane and malt.” Very accurate! It’s very sweet like some sort of syrup, a little nutty, a little like mushrooms, a little malty, a little like cedar all adding up to lightness. Milk chocolate rather than dark. All three steeps were the same.
Steep #1 // just boiled // rinse // 1 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 2 min
Steep #3 // just boiled // almost 4 min

Edited to add: Looks like this one is made from leaves from 2011, not 2012.

This is a wonderful tea. It is not like drinking a cupful of flowers. It’s delicate, sweet, floral of course, but not overbearing and absolutely no bitterness. The flavor lasts through several steeps. Would definitely purchase this again.

Got this as a sample from the Mandala guys. Following their directions for amount of tea, temp, and steeping time. First thing… Oh wow, the aroma! So fragrant. Mangos? There is no bitterness to this tea at all. It’s mellow, sweet, fruity. Not flowery. I’ve read other steepster reviews and I think I’m the only person getting the fruit here, lol. Green wasn’t really my thing before I tried this tea, but this is definitely going on my shopping list.

I purchased an ounce of this in my most recent order, and am coming to regret not getting more than I did. Having tried two other milk oolongs, and finding them dissatisfying due to the artificial flavor, there was some hesitance in ordering it. However, this tea was pleasantly smooth and comforting. The initial brew, or rinse if you do that to your oolong, presents a noticeable aroma similar to milk. After a few steeps the tea progressed from heavier cream, dairy, and viscous consistency to a lighter floral flavor I find in some Tieguanyin. It was an excellent tea and held up to several brews in my gaiwan. I will be ordering a larger quantity next time as this tea accompanies my night of Richard Dawkins literature well.

So the first thing I’m noticing about this tea, before I even taste it, is that it doesn’t look like any TGY I’ve ever had before. It’s so green, and the liquor is so, so pale, and the aroma is very much like Jin Xuan. Keep in mind I’ve only ever had cheap asian market teas, with the exception of Foojoy “Monkey Picked” TGY which actually isn’t bad and I’d have to say is a step above cheap asian market teas. It’s just that I’m used to a much darker TGY. Ok, the taste. Gongfu. 1 tsp, 190 degrees. 30 second rinse. 30 second steeps, lost count how many. It does not taste like Jin Xuan at all. There’s that familiar TGY astringency (love). Interesting creamy mouth feel. Complex. Floral. (Side note: the leaves are gigantic!) If this was labeled as something entirely different, I never would have identified it as a TGY. So I learned two things: first, I really don’t know much at all when it comes to tea, and second, I think maybe I just prefer darker, more roasted TGYs. I will have to find one now.

Sipdown :)
This was not quite as tasty today. I wish I had more for experimenting. Missed those mineral notes!!

I shouldn’t have had this today as I was not in the frame of mind to pay attention. Despite that though, I made it to four steeps.
What I can tell you is that this is delicious. Like the molasses version of red velvet cake. Smooth and sweet shaded by a mineral note and an even more potent sugary aftertaste.
Each steep was progressively sweeter and more mineraly.
Other than that I can’t really give any specifics. There wasn’t any real definition between cups which makes me think that this one could go on forever in a gaiwan. Great because, well yum, but I can see myself getting frustrated because if one cup just melds into the next, I won’t notice the differences as much. Like a frog in slowly boiled water.
Geeze, I’m feeling morbid today.

This is the first decent quality ginseng oolong I’ve tried. The last one I got was from an Asian market, and all the ginseng powder just disintegrated into my pot and there wasn’t much actual tea. It wasn’t all that great. So… gongfu, water just under boiling, 1 tsp tea, 30 second steeps (as per Mandala) and increased to a minute in later steeps. The first thing I notice is the cool mouth feel and pleasant aftertaste. I can see where this would be lovely for a sore throat. Quite refreshing. I think this would make a great iced tea as well.
EDIT: I had to come back and edit this review to make the score higher. I love this tea. I lost count how many steeps I’ve done. My eyeballs are floating in tea and I’m not going to stop. You get a lot of wonderful licorice camphor bang for your buck with this tea. I don’t know if it’s possible to get tea drunk on this stuff, but I might be.