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“what a dramatic day! i got 90% on my first heavy assignment (yay) and the touchscreen laptop provided to me by the province YESTERDAY died tonight! needless to say i am thinking all sorts of words...” Read full tasting note
“Mandalay is a cousin of Esprit de Noël blend. A cousin by cinnamon & cardamom filiation The scent is strongly spicy, not floral at all. The dry leaves are so beautiful, a large amount of petals...” Read full tasting note
“Spring, after taking its own sweet long time to arrive, decided to pretend to leave after all. It´s cold and windy, very disappointing. But it´s making me turn to my tea corner and drink and...” Read full tasting note
“A tasty black tea with warm orange spicy notes. Perfectly balanced, the notes neither overwhelm or get left behind in the blend. Quite similar to Mariage Freres Espirit De Noel. Mandalay is a...” Read full tasting note
A black Ceylon tea flavoured with vanilla, rose, cinnamon & the oils of rare Burmese spices.
Incomparable taste–a true delight.
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what a dramatic day! i got 90% on my first heavy assignment (yay) and the touchscreen laptop provided to me by the province YESTERDAY died tonight! needless to say i am thinking all sorts of words that i can’t say here, lol. although it was warranted for every single eventuality….. i just really really hope i have by monday for school.
the tea! first time round was very ‘meh’, which surprised me. mariage freres is really not affiliated with that colloquialism in my head…. and yet that is what the tea evoked.
‘give it a few days…. try it again,’ i sagely advised myself. tonight: 1.5 tablespoons for 6 minutes in my 12 oz mug. the dry blend reminded me of a chai (sortof) so i treated it that way (cream and sugar) and it worked very well! reminds me very much of a flower scented chai… something exotic smelling.
not my favourite of the samples from ysaurella, but still very nice!
Mandalay is a cousin of Esprit de Noël blend. A cousin by cinnamon & cardamom filiation
The scent is strongly spicy, not floral at all.
The dry leaves are so beautiful, a large amount of petals of sunflower is mixed with some red spices.
Steeped four minutes only to ensure not having a too spicy cup, the tea was perfectly balanced between the spicy notes and the rose note.
If you want to taste this tea, you should be spice lover otherwise you can be very disappointed. Rose flavour is really sweetening the liquor and is really present but the main notes remain spices, cinnamon & cardamom on the top.
I won’t have Esprit de Noël (sometimes called Noël) and Mandalay in my cupboard at the same time.
I have to think about that but I really appreciated the rose flavour in this blend so not sure I’ll won’t change my dear Noël by this blend sometimes.
Interesting that they’re so similar! I’m very tempted, Noel is one of my very favourites.
Oh dear, this sounds awesome. I was tempted by Noel, but I smelled it and I must admit to a bias – I am portuguese, I do not like citrus rinds in things namely orange peel. For me citrus rinds are the stuff you throw away (lemon zest for some reason is acceptable, but of orange and clementines and such no), so I tend to prefer my citrus more abstract. Mandalay is sounding wonderful.
I bought a little bit of Chandernagor the other day though have not had it yet, am sort of reserving. It smells divine, but cloves are its main ingredient and proud to be it. Cinnamon and cardamom are there, but the starring role is all cloves.
the vanilla is present too but very very behind, just as a basis.
Spring, after taking its own sweet long time to arrive, decided to pretend to leave after all. It´s cold and windy, very disappointing. But it´s making me turn to my tea corner and drink and sampling those samples I was saving, as a treat and a way to cheer up.
Mandalay was another sample so kindly sent by Ysaurella. I had been so intrigued by her references to it. And this is just not what I was expecting. I was expecting a chai, and while this is spicy, it´s a totally different type of tea.
I had today just tried a perfume (mother´s day is coming. everybody wants you to try perfume, you can not walk on the street past perfume shops without being offered a sniff). It was a woody spicy ladies´ perfume, with a cedar base and flowers, patchouli maybe. And in my mind this tea is irresistibly linked to that perfume – a sort of “dry” floral with woody overtones. In the perfume it was cedar, here it is the spices, cinnamon (which I guess is woody as well) and others (cloves? cardamom?) and then a bit of rose indeed, but the mix of roses and cinnamon tastes melded somehow into something woody rather than separate. A very interesting taste.
it seems you liked it so I’m happy :)
yes you’re right this is a woody taste and it comes from cinnamon.I didn’t have the impression to describe a chaï in my note, did I ? I am not very good at chaï as I didn’t had many so I may have described it without knowing :)
I really love this tea because this is an absolute incredible meeting of spices and rose…and I’m a sucker for rose teas and spices teas !
I think there is something from the cinnamon plus rose which calls to mind at once woodsy perfume to me – even that cedar based perfume I tried myself.
I think it was not at all your fault I expected a chai, I think it must have been from overbrowsing the MF site or something. Tea with spices =/= chai or not always! Chai can be so abrangent, but this, to my mind, most definetely is not.But woodsy indeed…
A tasty black tea with warm orange spicy notes. Perfectly balanced, the notes neither overwhelm or get left behind in the blend. Quite similar to Mariage Freres Espirit De Noel. Mandalay is a little smoother and less zesty but the common DNA is obvious. The main difference is that Mandalay has a hint of rose underpinning it, whereas I don’t get that in Noel. Mandalay is a cozy tea for a chilly day without being explicitly “winter holiday.” I usually brew it twice, which makes it surprisingly affordable (or so I tell myself!)
Flavors: Cinnamon, Orange Zest, Rose
A sample from Ysaurella. This is a tea I’m already slightly familiar with, as I drank the iced tea version earlier in the summer. I liked it, and so was interested to try the black tea version that inspired it as well. I gave 1 tsp of leaf 4 minutes in boiling water, and (based on the colour of the resulting liquor) left it black.
I was expecting a little astringency, but there is none. It’s actually a gloriously smooth tasting blend, and the spicing is perfectly done. It’s distinctive but not harsh, and it’s still possible to taste the pleasantly malty black base underneath. An example of a spiced tea well done, in my book.
Although it’s spiced, it’s not reminiscent of chai. Rather, it tastes very eastern inspired, very exotic, reminiscent of a walk through a souk. The spices are so well blended, it’s actually quite hard to pick out individual notes. I fairly sure there’s cinnamon, but I’ll need to think on this one a little more (and try it when I’m not at work, perhaps) in order to have time to really think about what I’m tasting. A positive experience, though, and a pretty unique blend. I’ve not tried many (any?) like this before, which is actually quite refreshing! A possible for my cupboard.
Congrats on the assignment!
And hope they get your laptop figured out ASAP. I bought a brand new one as a birthday present a few years back (because up until then EVERY computer I’d had was a hand-me-down) and 2 hours after first turning it on, I got a line of dead pixels on the screen! It was disappointing! But Dell had a technician over to replace it within 2-3 days, so no hard feelings on my part. Anyway fingers crossed.
well that’s good news, mine’s a dell too. and ATBC (access technology BC) is a wicked taskmaster if their students are being impacted. and seeing as i can’t write….. yeah. my case manager will be chasing them down with cattle prods.
thanks for the congrats! this is the class that i continually worry i’m not smart enough to be in, heh heh. the other one i’m makes me worry about my memory!!! very big classes, both of them!
xoxo
Well that’s a great start. :)
And I have a terrible memory, yet I still made it through my BA with a good GPA. I’m sure you’ll figure out what tricks work best for you. For me (and my psych major) I found that focusing mostly on the vocab was huge because if I could remember all the fiddly terms, the concepts behind would follow. Of course it all depends on your class.
I hope you have a few courses where you can show off your writing skills. :) I know you’ve blown a few of us away here with your reviews. I’m sure your profs will be so impressed/grateful to have something interesting and well written to read.
I’m with Cavo on that one!
have i ever told you that the front half of my hair is fire engine red? awesomely fake, awesomely brilliant too IMO….. now my face is too. ahem.
the vocab focus is a very good suggestion!
the first time round at uni i was a an english major on scholarship…. now i’m reder-er-er.
Oh, I hope your experience with ATBC is good. Mine was not so good.
The warranty was awesome though. I contacted Dell directly for replacement parts, and though they wanted to send a tech out ASAP, they agreed to mail new parts to me with return envelopes for the old ones. Worked so well for me.
So. Fingers crossed for you! And congratulations on your grade! That’s awesome. :)
oh no! it’s been good so far, but that could be down the case manager who is awesome. i would be very happy with a tech coming out ASAP. i was still learning how to use the new machine! not sure, but i think i have to go through ATBC when it looks like the whole machine has gone caput? i’m sure i’ll have answers tomorrow.
handed in lab #2 today… wow did i feel over my head! i hope i do as well as the one i got back today…. i worked way harder on this one! you would have laughed at us all in class today: comparing labs trying to feel LESS stupid! lol.
They told me my warranty was with Dell, so I contacted Dell. Hopefully your sadness gets resolved quickly!
That IS how university goes! :D Generally the students who are the most worried put in the most amount of work, and do the best. So keep working, talk to your profs/TAs about any questions, and you’ll do great! If you ever find you want an extra set of eyes to read over a paper, let me know. I do editing in my spare time, and actually LOVE reading papers.
that’s an awesome offer! thank you…. i’m generally pretty good at editing, what with the writing schtick, but sometimes it’s less about writing and more about the continuity and flow of information and logic. i may well take you up on your offer! be warned…. i might hit you with a human geography paper! lol.
That’s fine! I did a couple first year geography courses. :)
Mandalay is a very beautiful tea that’s a pity it didn’t really work for you.