Mandala Tea

I must have bought a sample of this before and forgotten about it because I have reviewed this before. This is definitely a lighter smoked lapsang than some I have had. To be honest this time around I can barely taste the smoke. I get sweet notes behind the smoke, not sure how to describe them. This is excellent tea.

I brewed this one time in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 3 min.

This is a nice cup of tea. It is a lighter smoked Lapsang but definitely a smoked one. The smokiness was a little too strong for me so I added some unflavored non dairy creamer to it.

I brewed this once in a 20oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 1 min.

free sample of this one in my latest mandala order – the rest is off to omgsrsly since it was a semi joint order lol and she can always share with folks out there if she doesn’t like it. this is a GREEN ooolong. it’s not like a milk oolong..but there is a creaminess to it that iam a fan of. that being said, i won’t need to order this since oolongs, they’re not for me most of the time…but i can say that this would probably be nice for an oolong fan!

Method:
~1.5tsp/12oz
Pre-boiling
First steep: 1min
Second steep: 2min 15
Third steep: 4min

It brews up a lovely clear reddish gold. The body is light to medium, and it’s incredibly smooth. It opens with notes of honey and hay. Almost floral, but not quite there. By the end of each sip it’s transformed into a silky, pudding-like concoction of chocolate, malt, and fresh bread. Very distinctly a Yunnan tea. It has its own natural sweetness, with zero astringency. (And pudding mouth! Woah.)

The second steep brings out notes of sweet potato. The initial flavors are brighter, more “brassy” and almost citrusy. It’s still followed quickly by malt, bread, and a touch of cocoa. Less chocolate here. Hardly any at all. The malt is still strong—pudding mouth, again. I prefer to drink it after it’s cooled. The nearly citrus flavors fade and it’s liquid malt-honey-bread.

Third steep was much the same as the second. (Perhaps a little less malt, more honey.)

It’s certainly a lovely tea. Not one I think I’ll be craving often as I tend to like darker, heavier, chocolatey black teas lately.

I received my latest Mandala order today!!!!! I’m so excited – yeah, yeah, yeah – the teas look great – I’m sure they are going to be amazing – but the tea table – OMG I had no doubts that it was going to be beautiful, but it is SPECTACULAR!!! LOVE IT!!!!
http://instagram.com/p/zOTsxCuE8L/?modal=true
http://instagram.com/p/zOUQj3uE9M/?modal=true

Soooooooooo – I decided to break it in with one of the samples that Garret so generously included with my order. (Ok I might have requested this as a sample, and am very grateful that it ended up in my package – you guys are the best!!)
I’ve been wanting to try rice scented mini tuo’s for awhile now but couldn’t really decide if it would be something I would like or not. So tonight is the night….
WOW in your face rice – the first two steeps were just over powering rice flavor. OK – I don’t like this – lets modify steep parameters – MUCH shorter steep time – less rice, but still too much for me – fourth steep – flash steep – better, I’m still not crazy about this. fifth steep – added a bit of time on – I think I would like this if I could get past the smell – I think I wrecked it for myself by over steeping the first few and now I can’t get past it.
This is really strange to me – it’s like drinking plain white sticky rice. I think I was expecting earthy shou pu’erh with a hint of rice. This is liquid rice with a hint of mushroom – I’m not really getting much pu’erh at all.
I have a second tuo and will try it again in a couple of months and will rinse it several times and keep the steeps incredibly short and see if that helps.
I’m sure some people really like this, I think I should like this, I would like to like this…. Maybe it’s just so far from what I was expecting that I can’t accept it for what it is.
I will try it again – but this is one I’m REALLY happy to have gotten to try before I bought a ton of it. Thank you so much Mandala for that opportunity. :))
http://instagram.com/p/zOYlsDOEz0/?modal=true

I’ve been meaning to do a Mandala order for sooooo long… But with Butiki recently closing all of my money the last few months seemed to be leaving my pocket and doing a very fast and very happy jig over to Butiki… And then one day…. Dexter posted some pictures of some amazingly beautiful and unique walnut tea trays Mandala had recently acquired and I knew my time of avoiding an order to save my credit card was over!!

This tea has been on my wish list FOREVER!! So of course it had to sneakily be added to my tea tray order (along with so many other goodies!) and of course I tore into the bag as soon as my order arrived… Well as soon as I’d stoped drooling over my new tea tray… (Thank you so much again for sharing your beautiful find Dexter!!!). The dry leaf scent of this tea is unbelievable!! I’m talking coconut milk mixed in with a rich , heady condensed milk scent! And the taste? Mmmmm, I’ve died and gone to tea heaven! The milky flavor doesn’t quit, steep after steep, it’s still present, just more subtle as the tea morphs from creamy and nutty to a more floral flavor right at the end.

This will be my milk oolong yard stick from now on, the tea that I hold all other milk oolong in comparison to! I hope I can find something else that’s just as good, but if not, I’ll be more than content with this little gem never ever leaving my cupboard!!

When wet, the leaves expanded wonderfully. I always love checking on them right after the wash, when the creases of the leaves are glowing with a brilliant light green, juxtaposed to the now dark forest green of the curled leaf faces. Normally when I check the leaves, I tend to count or pick out the leaves that are completely whole. This time, I was counting the leaves that were incomplete. The smallest leaf chunk was about the size of a dime, and there were only 3 loose stems. Considering this contained the bottom of the sample, I’d say that’s quite impressive. Most leaves were 1.5 to 2 inches, a smaller pile was between 1 and 1.5 inches. Most leaf edges were intact and the veins were clear against the leaf face. Bruising was minimal, mostly around the edges, but about 3 leaves out of about 40 were very bruised. Otherwise, every leaf looked pretty much the same.

The wet leaf aroma was like candied soy beans (is this a thing?) and snap peas. They smelled somewhat fresh and bright, with some darker undertones like over-boiled broccoli and stone. At some points, they became yeasty-smelling and biscuity. Much later on, they took on aromas of freshly cut grass, melon, and tiny hints of fresh mushrooms.

My main criticism was that it didn’t taste like Pu’er. It is a VERY good tea but it is not what I expected, which let me down quite a bit. I would still recommend to anyone, even though they are sold out.

Additional notes: Teabox sample sipdown of this one. Always tasty and always consistent in the smooth sweet flavor. I had four mugs over two days with the same leaves. The steeps did keep resulting in a darker brew but that might have just been the hotter steeping. I’m not sure it really turned into a “black tea” though.

Thank you so much, Beorhthraefn! This is an odd little white tea. The leaves are actually white, green, and black in color, all very long & wiry. The description says this one almost changes to a black tea with age, so I was hoping I could save half the sample for later, but there was enough for one steep session. The flavor is great, similar to a bai mu dan at first, while the flavor is lighter: hints of sweet lemon, very very sweet. Subsequent steeps remind me of BUTIKI’S WHITE RHINO. Possibly my favorite white tea, and I would imagine many people would be looking for a replacement. Try this one! Anyway, the flavor gets a little more difficult to describe, it smooths out, becoming a little darker, losing the citrus. Maybe hints of dried grass. I really like this one… I wish I could describe it better. Happy to have tried this one, but I would have loved to try it later. Hopefully Mandala is still selling this one when my White Rhino runs out.
Steep #1 // 30 min after boiling // rinse // 1 min steep
Steep #2 // 25 min a.b. // 1 1/2 min
Steep #3 // 20 min a.b. // 2 min

I am not sure whether to call this tea sweet and malty or malty and sweet. One note is slightly more powerful than the other, not sure which. It is not one of those malty teas where all you taste is overpowering malt. I like this tea. It is good.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 1 min.

Not the best tea I have had but for some reason if I had to give it a name, WILD MONK would be apt. I have to say thank you for the offering though. It is unique!

I ordered this tea from shopmandalatea.com and it came smelling really bad. The taste didnt seem to be effected and maybe it was the shipping but I have to say I was not impressed.

The whole ‘short steep’ idea has never really grown on me – whenever try it, tea tends to taste like tea-flavored-water. This time, I decided to try steeping in 30 second increments; re-steeping if I get the mostly-water flavor (this is pretty easy to do with my Breville).

Though 30 seconds turned out as expected (i.e. water + unidentifiable tea), I’m getting a much more complicated flavor profile at one minute than I’ve ever gotten with this tea. I’m finally tasting the spiciness in the background and the roasted favors up front. My normal 3 minute steeping time may strengthen the dominate flavors, but it also dulls the subtle ones.

I get a feeling that it takes a while to truly get to know this complicated tea. On first impression – this is a more well rounded cup than my other favorite oolongs. The flavor is strong altogether, but it doesn’t have a bitter or astringent note that other strongly flavored teas sometimes have. Also, I’m tasting a lot more grassy green flavors than I usually do in a ‘dark’ oolong. It coats the tongue somehow, but also manages to stay light.

This is a relatively tasty ripe puerh. It is sweet with a fair amount of fermentation flavor. The fermentation taste is not overpowering. I only brewed this western style this morning so I didn’t get the whole range of flavors.

I brewed this twice in an 18oz teapot with 6.1g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it twice for 30 sec and put the second steeping in a thermos.

I got this sample from Mandala a while back. My tea knowledge is still growing after all this time. I thought all dancong teas were from Phoenix mountain so that’s what I was expecting, Now I see it’s from Wuyi which is also good as I like Wuyi oolongs a lot.

This got steeped up in the yixing this afternoon. It has a bit of roasty quality that reminds me of burnt sugar. For me the predominate note is fruity, peach and nectarine notes. There is a bit of minerality in the finish and it leaves a long sweet aftertaste in your mouth. I accidentally did one steep where I forgot the time and left it steeping too long, then it became sort of bitter and chalky. So.. I wouldn’t recommend doing that but 20-30 seconds seems like a good steeping time for it.

Not destined to be one of my favorite oolongs, but still a solid choice, nice every day drinking tea.