2008 Lang Cang Rice Scented Ripe Mini Tuo

Backlogging – I haven’t been drinking too much pu-erh recently, but decided to break this one out today and had 3 steeps of it this afternoon. I like the unique rice flavor of it, it even seems a bit salty. I am loving Mandala for pu-erhs and black tea…

Being brave tonight and trying my first mini tuocha, courtesy of Amy oh and helpful advice from both her and Garret!

To begin with… I am in love with this rice-scented bit! Dry, there was a bit of an indication of what was to come, but once the boiling water hit the tuocha, my mouth started watering. It smells so good! So I’m very excited :D I can also smell a nice earthiness. I wish it would cool down faster so I could drink it….

I started with a ~15s rinse with boiling-ish water, and then a first infusion of about 30 seconds. The tea is pretty dark from just that short amount of time, so I’m glad I didn’t go with 45! The aroma is still earthy and rice-scented, yum.

…I’m too impatient to wait to try it. Hmm. I have no idea how to describe this flavour. A bit earthy, a bit rice-like, with a nice aftertaste/aroma of the scented rice. It’s really too hot for me to enjoy quite yet (although I’m sure people drink it this hot, I like my teas cooler.) It is actually a touch light on the flavour, so I might try 45 seconds with the other tuocha (but we’ll see).

Ok! It’s cool enough to try now, and it’s really lovely! Earthy but with a strong rice scent. I’m still getting used to the flavour of pu’erh, but this is quite nice and easy to drink, especially with the tasty flavouring.

I’ll try another couple infusions a bit later; time to head out for that run! Hopefully I don’t get a tummyache :D

ETA: Definitely got a tummyache while running. Unlikely caused by tea though, probably by the bag of cheese puffs (organic and gluten-free!) I ate alongside the tea :D Anyhow, second infusion for about 53 seconds once I finally drained all the water, is quite dark and has the same aroma as the previous infusion. I’m going to wait until it cools to try it out, but am anticipating the same yumminess as before :D Also, I noticed that the leaf is very interesting-looking! There’s green leaf pieces in there! Is that the flavouring herb?? (Also, glass teapot not the best idea for this pu’erh… my cup contains many floaties. I should have strained it through a secondary strainer, my bad.)

Ok, tea cool enough to drink. More earthy, less fragrant rice-y, but I still enjoy it. I think pu’erh is a taste I haven’t quite acquired yet, but I’d have to say that this one is pretty good for “beginners” because of the additional flavouring which helps to counteract that straight earthiness. (Also… I think pu’erh will be a much easier taste to acquire than either beer or coffee, neither of which I will EVER enjoy straight. Blech.)

Well this is pretty interesting. Rice scented puerh. As soon as the hot water hits the mini tuo, there is a mushroom-y rice scent that wafts up. After a ten second rinse, I steeped it for 30 seconds. Someone who reviewed this mentioned that it tasted like the mushrooms from a basmatti rice, or something to that effect. And I 100% agree. That is the best way I can describe this. I get some white button mushrooms as well as a little wilder flavor of a morel. And it tastes like they’ve been boiled in the water that you will use to cook the rice and then you cook the rice and if that mushroom rice was liquefied, you’d have this. Or, you could pour off some of the water before it is all absorbed into the rice. Either way. Mushroom rice.

Fascinating for sure. Not sure that it is something I am 100% into. I don’t know why I shouldn’t be. I mean, I like rice and I adore mushrooms. But for some reason it is kind of weirding me out. I could see using this in cooking though. Maybe it will grow on me.

The second steep I only let go for 15 seconds as it got much darker much quicker. Same basic flavor though maybe the mushroom flavor is slightly amped up. Just a very unique experience here. I don’t know what to make of it.

*UPDATE EDIT

So, what can be said of this is that it has longevity. I’ve been steeping it on and off all day long. The flavor is holding up quite nicely as is the color. It has certainly grown on me and after about 4 or 5 steeps a slight sweetness comes out to play with the mushroom rice flavor. I’m ticking up the rating a bit.

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!!!!
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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. :))
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I got these in the mini tuocha variety pack, and was only going to review them on the pack’s page, but I think I can confidently identify this one, so I’m putting the review here too.

So, I thought it would be fun to try the little pink tuochas in this package. Based on the paper wrapping, they should be Mandala’s 2012 Lang Cang rice scented ripe mini tuos. I steeped it up and yes, they have to be rice scented, because I got this very strong rice scent wafting from the liquid. It smells amazing, kinda like sweet rice that is a bit burnt. The flavor in the early steeps came on too strong for me and I got this sickly sweet rice flavor, with some floral notes. I looked it up and I guess it’s scented with an herb that smells like rice….interesting. After a few steeps, I started to like it more as the rice flavor melded better with the puerh. It even started to taste caramel-like. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite, but I’m glad to have tried it. Now I know!

Mmm…tastes exactly like mushrooms in basmati rice to me. Loving this (and the lack of smokiness which I find too frequently in mini tuochas…)