Special Dark

As usual, our news people made a big drama over the storm, & we didny really get much in st louis: a thin layer of ice, dusted with a little snow. Of course, it’s cold, 15F, but that’s no biggy. It’s been a nice pj day, with a fire, food, tea, & couch potato mode. :)

Says you! My flight got cancelled!!!! Grrrrrrr

Indy was calling for a foot of snow. Instead they got a couple inches. Down south, we have maybe an inch of snow over sleet with a thick layer of ice under it. Enjoy the fire.

You live somewhere where you can build a fire? colour me jealous!!

Tony has a fireplace :)

I’ right there with you & was waiting on that mega snow of 8-12 inches over the weekend. Got a layer of ice and then about 4 inches of snow. Nothing to slow us down unless it starts blowing and drifting. Gla to have a wood stove and lots of tea samples to try this year. When will this winter mess end? Oh wait.. When it’s over, it’s tornado season!

Ugh, tornado season…can’t wait! :P I had to drive to work this morning in this mess, though schools and such are all closed today.

https://smarttoolbuddy.com/

I’m so sorry to hear about you dog :( Hopefully you can take some comfort in returning to old routines (e.g. tea/Steepster).

Oh, I’m so sorry to hear about your dog.

Condolences on the death of your dog. I hope the memory of the many wonderful years you had together will help carry you through this sad time.

Sorry for your loss. Dogs are pretty special animals

I’m so sorry for your loss.

I don’t know how old your kids are but I am sure they are mourning as well. Hang on to the memories and each other.

Sorry about your canine friend passing! Pets are very precious.

I am so sorry! It breaks our hearts because they fill our hearts so much.

I’m so sorry to hear this.

I am so sorry to hear you lost your dog!

Aw… that’s hard. Sorry to hear.

This is really late to the party (I just tried this for the first time tonight). I am sorry to hear about your dog.

That is really good to know someone as experienced as Bonnie says it’s ok to put milk and sugar in a pu erh—I was thinking for some reason pu erh would be one of those tea types people think should never be adulterated, but this is so INTENSE I’ve been thinking some milk would help. I mean I know I can do whatever I want really, but still, it’s reassuring.

I have some of this, and I’m dying to try it. Everyone who has tried it seems to agree that it’s wonderful. Glad to hear that you also are enjoying it. Need to find a day that I can spend some time and enjoy it properly.

The full 3 minute steep is something I need to try soon too. I am also tempted to bake with this. I may pop it into someone’s birthday cake as a surprise.

I haven’t found a puerh I like yet, is this worth trying if I don’t seem to like the fish food barn flavor?

Maybe? This one doesn’t have the marine & barn profile. Either that or my brain is starting to filter those flavors out! :)

Tastybrew: have you tried Chocolate Strawberry Puerh from Lupicia? It hardly tastes like Puerh at all.

cough i have a birthday in july..just saying grace lol
@tastybrew – i second ash’s comments on that one from lupicia! it’s delicious!

This one is also in your box…

terri…yeah but the CAKE grace is going to make isn’t grin

Haha. We’ll have to see if the cake turns out well. My baking experiments usually end up either good or on fire.

THAT should be interesting! :)

Good stuff! This is how I make puerh lattes…really strong!

oh man..i can’t believe it’s never occurred to me to make a puerh latte…

The 7 minute steep is my favorite way to drink Special Dark. It’s a kick in the face but so yummy. I shall have to try it in latte form. I never thought of trying that before.

Even though I sometimes like to do short steepings, I really love doing a long strong one too. I don’t usually go 7 minutes. I think I got that idea from Grace :)

Sweetening puerh or adding milk can increase the caramel notes…You begin to know which ones are going to be best for lattes after awhile. A real Fall and Winter treat!

Not latte’s! CHA-tte’s! That’s what we call here at Mandala Tea :) So tasty!!!!!! And if you are adding something other than whole milk and using thinner products like almond or rice milk, I like blending in some really nice coconut milk to thicken up the mouthfeel a bit. I just use a stick blender. Awesomeness, children!

On the rare occasion that I make a Chatte (I’ll use that from now on Garret, thank you), I use canned coconut milk, but for some some reason I never though of whipping it up with my immersion blender! Now I want to make a chatte!

YES – to coconut milk!! I use that in my post-workout smoothies! So delishus. And the coconut oil/fat is so beneficial to the body. And incredible oil that I use for darned near everything – cooking, skin care, tea. I could drink coconut milk til the cows come home!

Yup, me too Garret! I also make Keifir from it :)

That is an excellent idea! I used to make so much kefir when I had access to raw, grass-fed milk… Do you use kefir “grains” or some other culturing method?

I use Kefir grains. They have to go into real milk every couple of days, but my sons can drink the milk kefir, so it works out ok. I’ll have extra Kefir grains soon, so if you want some, let me know!

I used to do coffee tastings and recommendations for specialty grade coffees (can I say coffee here? :) ), and although I drank my coffee black, there were some origins that benefited from a bit of sugar or cream.For example, a bit of sugar would bring out the complex fruitiness of Ethiopians and Kenyans, and just a dash of cream would bring up the chocolate notes in a great Kona or Guatemalan.
I have a sample of this that Garret sent along with an order and I need to try it asap. As a almost former coffee drinker, I will probably do 2 rinses and then a 5 minute steep. From what I read, it sounds like I’m in for a treat.

:D Love this one

Crazy right? But it totally works, and it’s yummy.

I placed a Mandala order this morning…. Garret is so nice, and the teas are amazing. I already have shipping confirmation with tracking number. Can’t beat the customer service. :))

That’s pretty awesome. Shipping is generally around $10 too, right? Maybe at the beginning of March I’ll be able to place an order! (Unless they have a sale which lets me break any resistance I have! :P)

And my second steep of this at 10 minutes is pretty awesome too. I was going to drink Laoshan Black today but now I don’t want to….

They charge actual shipping cost. I order A LOT today. I ordered 9 oz of tea, plus 2 × 100g pu’erh cakes, plus 6 oz of their tea soak stain remover. So that’s 15 oz + 200g of product and shipping was about $15.00. I’ve placed smaller orders with shipping in the 10-12.00 range, and I once ordered tea and a yixing teapot and it was 17.00. It depends on what you order. It’s a bit expensive if you consider lots of places do free shipping over 50.00 etc. BUT there are lots of US companies that try to charge us 30-35.00 for a couple of oz of tea. I consider Mandala “medium” when it comes to shipping costs, but the tea is AMAZING. I’ve ordered a few times and will continue to do so….

Wow I wish I had your tea budget, Dex! :D Can’t wait to read all your Mandala reviews!

Cavo…also it’s 5$ through sharon for shipping….just saying

LOL Sil – keep encouraging….

Stephanie – I think I’m doing good – 175.00 ish since Cyber Monday and the vast majority of that was Mandala today. Less than 200 in two months… not bad – for me at least :))

Sil – lemme know next time you want an order!

cavo – march sounds good to me unless you need it earlier lol that will give me time to sip some down OR you can come shop at my house for samples so you can narrow your choices down haha

March works for me too!

Happy, Happy belated birthday friend!!

Happy, happy!

Yay!!!

Happy birthday!

Thanks guys! :)

Happy birthday!!!!

I didn’t really send you any Sheng. I’ll start a box, that’ll jack your numbers up a little.
;)

Lmao too funny Terri lol I’m actually going to be away from my tea for like a week…..grrrr its awful lol

Where are you going that you can’t bring your tea? :O

Victoria…..hahaha but it’s a weird family sort of hotel and house staying kinda of weird hiking trip and visit with dying people sort of weird trip that means I’m probably better off just keeping it to 1or 2 max with me.

Sounds complicated. I bought 20 samples with me when i traveled in a little cardboard box, but that earned me a few odd looks.

When are you leaving Sil?
I’ll be away for a week, & I really need to narrow my list of teas down…or maybe just bring a box of samples & do a crazy week long sample sipdown, lol

This makes me want to get some to try! I’ll have to see if I can squeeze time in this weekend to try the others you sent me :)

I can’t wait for you to try them. Especially the Yong De. This one kind of reminds me of it but the Yong De starts out a bit earthy.

Wow, that sounds awesome!!

OOoooh I need to try this! DROOOOOOOL

This sounds amazing! I can’t see it on their site. Where do I acquire some?

They haven’t put it on the site yet but Garret let me order some. You can email him and ask :)

I thought you might adore this one!!! We are crazy busy right now with the new shop and haven’t even had a chance to get this pu’er up online yet. But, as our dear friend, Grace said, I would be happy to help you to acquire some of this in the meantime. Just shoot me an email at: garret@mandalatea.com. I have a feeling we’ll be hoping we had bought a whole bunch more of this crop. It was expensive because of the super small batch ripening, but we thought it totally worth it. Tea ya!!!

wow…thank you for this lovely review! what a description, this tea sounds marvelous…my only experience with Pu’erh is Chocolate pu’erh by Numi… have yet to try a cake! from what i understand, pu’erhs have an inherently earthy quality to them, but this sounds like a very special one

this one is wonderful Pyarkaaloo! Garret has a number of wonderful puerhs!

thank you, Sil :) who is this famed Garret i keep hearing about on here? he’s practically a legend…everyone is always thanking him… it is perhaps, a rite of passage, to being on this site! ;p

Pyarkaaloo: Sorry it took me so long to see this. Best Buy was holding my computer hostage for repairs today. Special Dark is one of the great loves of my life. It tastes like one of those fancypants dark chocolate bars. I just had a bit with honey at a 7 minute steep and it was perfect. It’s so special and when Garret runs out, I will cry.

Garret is the man behind Mandala Tea. He is singlehandedly responsible for my love of pu’er. He’s pretty awesome :)

pyarkaaloo – I agree to all of this – graceatblb helped me discover Mandala – and Garrett – yep amazing pu’erhs. I can’t believe I haven’t tried this one yet – but if it’s half as good as most of the ones I’ve tried it will be amazing. Garret + Mandala + pu’erh = an amazing tea experience. :))

i’m so happy you enjoyed this one. i love this puerh a lot.

It’s your part-tea and you can steep how you want to, steep how you want to!!

Yay for ME tea nights, so proud of you :-)
Dark and choco, yum, yum!!

Wow, I tried this the other night and got it wrong. I’ll definitely try it again with longer steep parameters.

Darn right you can do what you want! :D

Cold steeping pu’erh, ah? I have to try that.

That sounds really amazing.
I will TRY to steep mine that long but I gotta say 4 minutes, and NINE minutes makes me a little nervous. I’m a “followe the vendors instructions, you noob” sorat gal. Especially with this. It’s my FIRST/ONLY Mandala tea!

It’s my par-tea and I did what I wanted. :)) It turned out great.
Sorry you didn’t enjoy it MissB – it doesn’t get nasty as you steep it longer, it just gets deeper and more chocolate. I highly recommend a long steep. I was VERY nervous too, but after trying the 4 minute steep, I knew you could not hurt it. I will do 8 or 9 minutes first steep next time.

Kamyria I didn’t believe the cold steep pu’erh either, and then I tried it. I quite often western steep leaves a couple of times, then toss them in the fridge for 16ish hours. Can’t explain it, it’s a different experience – very refreshing, you should try it once….

Cavocorax – if you want to follow vendors instructions, then you go right ahead. It’s your tea, don’t let me talk you out of your comfort zone. First/only Mandala? You are starting with a good one….

I twisted her rubber arm into ordering SOMETHING, ANYTHING from mandala when I placed my order lol

omg yay!! u just put the seal of approval on this one for me…it’s on my to-try list from Mandala…it sounded delicious to begin with, although i was worried it might have a damp,earthy pu’erh quality. but if this is anything like you say, i simply must give it a go!

Good job Sil – “something – anything” is pretty much correct when it comes to Mandala – it’s all good.

pyarkaaloo – but I like the “damp,earthy pu’erh quality” This has a little of that – it is a pu’erh, but it’s more in the background adding depth to the chocolate rather than hitting you in the face. I love all Mandala pu’erh. Their Silver Buds are really mild – more of a white tea with a hint of pu’erh. Noble Mark is just fantastic, but more traditional pu’erh. Wild Monk is the best sheng I’ve ever drank – pretty much what Sil said – anything from Mandala is a good choice….

Does restocking favorites count as breaking hiatus?

thanks for the clarification…this sounds like a nice pu’erh! i think i’ll be happy with this as long as it isn’t a predominantly ‘mossy/earth’ kind of flavor, although one never knows…if i try enough pu’erh cakes i may find one that i love! or i may develop my palate.. the cold steeping sounds delicious!

Yeah, I’m really happy Sil was able to do talk me into it! It was difficult because it was Black Friday and I’d already allocated most of my budget to Butiki and DTT. But ONE tea from Mandala… OK YES.

There will be more from them in the future. I still have to get past them being fancy in my head and just start drinking!

And I can experiment now! It’s just the first steep that I don’t like to mess with on the assumption that the vender knows what’s best. :P

Does.not.count.

Cavocorax This is a video of Garret giving you permission to play with your tea. He has a very open, whatever you like is correct for you attitude…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUt6kt00mpo&feature=youtube_gdata

I love steeping Special Dark for extreme amounts of time. Unlike with most teas, this one improves on a longer steep. The last time I had Special Dark I steeped it for 15 minutes and added a touch of cream. Heaven.

Garret does have a very laissez-faire approach to tea. Which I really appreciate. It eliminates the guilt when I, inevitably, break the rules.

Do as you like :) Whenever I do tea classes, I give people basic parameters for brewing and leave the rest up to them. I let people know that if they dig a green tea with boiling water, that’s cool, that’s how they should have it. I do use a little disclaimer here, though, and tell them that if they are serving tea to guests that it might be a good idea to go to more “traditional” way of brewing it :)

Yay! I love this one. And I love that someone was awesome and reminded you you should not get overwhelmed with sampling and take some time out for whatever you want to drink. Definitely.

And so agree, it’s the most intensely chocolate tea I’ve tasted.

It’s been awhile since I drank this, but as I recall, I went pretty heavy on the leaf :)

Thanks Terri, I might try that with what I have left. I have about two teaspoons and I’ll use them in a small mug, see how that turns out.

Did you find this at all fishy like some puerhs? Curious about this one but am not fond of the fishy/stinky aspect.

This one, for the second steep, was less stinky than other puerhs that I’ve had, but not by a lot. I hear people referring to bad quality puerhs as fishy, but imo, all shu puerhs have a pinch of the stink. Rinsing them first almost always takes the edge off. For me a good puerh is one that delivers an exquisite flavor to compensate for the smell.

Thanks, Shelley_Lorraine! I will definitely remember to rinse before to help get rid of the smell.

Shelley, you have such a great way with words! :D
Just sayin’…

for kicks and giggles, my very first review of a puerh, logged on fb, days before I joined steepster:
I got a free sample of loose leaf black puehr tea with my green tea shipment and was hesitant to try it the first few days. But I finally did today. At first, I noted that it smelled like a wicked cow pie, but braved tasting it anyway (don’t know what motivated me). Then, as I told Eric at the time, I decided that it tasted like drinking fossilized caterpillar poop dug up from under a mossy tree. However, it left a strange malty sweet aftertaste, so I kept going back for more because each time I had to see if it was my imagination that it tasted so bad at first. And each time it tasted so bad. But now I can’t remember for sure, so I’m going to go brew another cup .

Hahahahaha!!
It’s that aftertaste that hooks us! LOL

i dunno though, in the comments of that post, I suggested that it might be drugged. ;)

Oh man! I’ve had this for about a month (and it was the only one from Mandal I could justify ordering) but I haven’t tried it yet. I really need to make time for it where I can re-steep it and enjoy it…

It’s so intense! The chocolate-iest pu erh (granted I’m no expert in them), and one of for tea in general, I’ve had.