Mandala Tea "Heart Of The Old Tree" 2012 100G Raw Pu'er

This was a nice calm brew for a rainy day. The dry leaf is very light colored. I can see an array of amber, tarnished silver, cream brown, and slight platinum. This mixture of colors carries the scent of dried apricots and an autumn leaf pile. I placed a chunk in my warmed yixing and shook it up. The scent deepened to a sweet syrupy apricot glaze with a misty forest background. I brewed this treat up right away. This brew was very light and sweet. I detected no bitterness or astringency. The initial sip was of sweet grapes and a warm honey suckle undertone. The flavor continued to stay fruity and uplifting. This autumn grape tone lessened and was replaced with a delectable sweetness. This brew has a thick buttery mouthfeel and is very appetizing. The qi was a relaxed and focused aura that surrounds the body and dives deep to the core. This is a great tea, but it wasn’t what I was in search of tonight. I needed something with a little more power and a more expansive body. However, I enjoyed this tea a lot.

https://instagram.com/p/4kYgBxTGfp/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

4g, 200 degrees, gongfu, two short rinses, ten second steeps. I smell the tobacco aroma like I do with most shengs, but there’s something else there too. Definitely a fruity sweetness. OMG… this is the first sheng I’ve tried that I actually like. It’s mild, sweet, fruity… I get no grass, no seaweed, no tobacco. It’s bright and crisp.

Sheng/Shou TTB
This is a very nice young sheng. Small amounts of astringency and flavorful notes of sweetness and grape skins. This will get much better with age, but it a pleasant drinker right now.

I wish I had more time to write, but I’m in the midst of unclogging drains, doing laundry, cleaning dishes, and sundry other tasks… Ahhh!
But, at least there is tea… and there is THIS tea!
I really did not know I would love sheng so much….
And the way it changes with steeps! (fruity, to buttery and rich…) and the tiniest little bite at the end… it’s so fantastic.
Thank you, Dexter, for sending this my way… another favourite that I didn’t know was a favourite. ;)

Second to last I tasted in the sheng sampler. Brewed with the gongfu method in a gaiwan. 10 second rinse. Steeping times: 10, 10, 15, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 120, 150, 180.

The dry aroma has notes of dried grasses, tree bark, and a hint of spices. The wet leaf aroma smells sweet and fruity – sugarcane, grapes, plums, brown sugar, cranberries, all in the following order as the leaves cooled. A pleasure to stick my nose the gaiwan throughout the session. Nearly addictive.

The liquor is pale gold, medium-bodied, clear, and smooth. Consistently mild with a lively and bright personality. Due to my palate not being suited for sheng, I mostly discern sweet dried grass, though it is a kind of grass that is not off-putting, and the taste becomes more sweet than grassy as the session goes on. A juicy aftertaste stays with me minutes after I finish each cup. And each next cup I look forward to having. At the eighth infusion, grape and wine emerge notes. I am enlivened and comforted during this gray, cold late autumn afternoon.

I enjoyed this sheng greatly. Definitely my favorite in the sampler.

a nice and smooth tea. with honey taste and little spicyness/smokyness

when i smell the brewed tea, i smell honey and sweetness

the same when i taste it :)

thankyou mrmopar for this amazing tea

This tea is nice.

I’ve got a nice, relaxed feeling going on.

I started at 205° and the tea was a little bitter. I dropped to 195° and the bitter is gone. Smooth, sweet, not quite fruity. I like it.

YAY! I’m happy that Mandala did a raw sampler. Thanks for doing that Garret! I’ve been looking forward to trying this one in particular.

This is a bold, fruity and floral young sheng! It has plenty of qualities I love in a sheng, including a great energy. My only complaint is that it does have just a tiny bit of bitterness if brewed the way I typically like mine. Don’t let that scare you though, this has PLENTY to offer! YAY! Sheng-a-licious!

-Dry leaves: Medium sized leaves, warm brown with a spicy-sweet aroma. They’re covered in little silver hairs that give them an almost holographic look

-1st steep: Soft yellow infusion with a sweet and savory tastes that lingers in the mouth long after drinking. Unique taste that reminds me of green pepper, accompanied by mineral, molasses, and wet moss notes. Slight bitterness, but still pretty mild.

-2nd and 3rd steeps reveal more sweetness. Notes of muscadine grapes, rich soil, and something reminiscent of white cake.

-Around the sixth steep a menthol/cooling effect becomes noticeable, and a slight mushroomy flavor. Unfortunately the leaves are beginning to loose some of their strength already. I squeezed out ten infusions, but the last few were pretty weak.

-Spent leaves are slender and olive green. Plump stems with less defined veins. A good number of the leaves have browning/damaged edges

-Overall a nice sheng with a good amount of flavor and power, but burns through it’s stamina quickly. Like the other sheng that I’ve tried from Mandala it is fairly mild and has nice a nice cha qi.

This is an excellent sheng puerh with almost no bitterness and notes of honey and apricots. I added a very small amount of sugar to this tea which may have helped bring out these notes. This is extremely good tea. The good news is I called Mandala Tea, they are not near to running out. It will still be there when I get around to another Mandala order. This tea had a nice golden yellow color. The spent leaves have the aroma of apricots.

I steeped this tea 7 times in a 150ml gaiwan with 200 degree water and 6g leaf. I steeped it for 10 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, and 2 min. There is still more left in these leaves but I have had enough sheng for today.