Aloha Pu'erh

My roommate said this tasted like the Indonesian medicine she had as a kid.

I thought it was ok if I didn’t breath through my nose. It has the puerh trademark fishiness, although it isn’t as heavy as I’ve experienced elsewhere. In theory I should love this; it has a candied tropical fruit flavour and a creamy, white chocolate body. It doesn’t work for me however, and it’s not because I dislike puerh (it’s great every once in a while). This comes off tasting a little medicinal, a little artificial, and very off.

Eh, it does succeed in reminding me of Hawaii- fruit, cream, Kona coffee, fish, and all, but I don’t know if this is the right combination of it. Maybe this would be better on its second steep but I don’t really want to find out.

Edit: I like this a bit more cooled down. It’s creamy on its own but it might be ok with milk or as an iced smoothie/latte.

every time i’m about to steep this, i think of momo’s review:

“why did they think this was okay to make?”

it has an oily top coat. probably from the candied fruits. or the white chocolate more likely.
it’s not as awful as all that. but really a puerh can be so much better than this.

Am pretty glad I only got a small amount of this one. David doesn’t do pu’erh to my taste so I went into this tea with trepidation . . . and I was right, but for different reasons. Normally all I get from their pu’erh is fish and count me shocked to discover that I didn’t this time, dry or brewed. I love how this tea smells in the bag, all fruity and delish. But brewed its just too dark of a pu’erh for me and the more I sip the more I’ve decided I really can’t finish the cup.

Dry Leaf Nose: Creamy with an earthy note followed by a fresh fruity aroma that gives this blend a very balanced nose.

Liquor: Golden and opaque.

Flavour: Sweet, creamy, slightly fruity and underpinned by an earthy shou pu’erh. The liquor is well balanced and quite sweet, full bodied. The creamy note and the fruit dominate but the earthy pu’erh still shines through.

Maybe it’s because I’m new to pu’erh but it seems to me that this tea isn’t as awful as everyone has led me to believe. It’s sweet, it’s slighty creamy and then that smooths over into something earthy.

Maybe I’m just used to artificial flavouring? Or I don’t know how good this should actually be? I’ll probably have a better idea of what pu’erh should be like after I receive my sample from Butiki but for now I’ll play around with the few samples I bought from Davids.

Now, where do I file my Pu’erh teas? I probably should rearrange all my sachets in the boxes and get more containers, but buying more storage containers just means that I’m accepting the higher number of teas that I have. :| Better to just have them strewn on my counter and annoying me so that I sip and make room to file them away! #newplan

Mmm… I like that this is earthy and not fishy!

why did they think this was okay to make?

Smells awful (fishy), but doesn’t taste too bad, actually. I will say I had it with milk and sugar as I do with pretty much all blacks and dark oolongs, so this pu erh was no exception. Maybe that is what made it good.

It might just be that this brew was more fruit and less tea…when you have big chunks of fruit in the mix like this, the ratio to tea leaves decreases. Still, I can taste the tropical fruit in this mix. I can’t really taste the chocolate, but I think it helps smooth out the blend.

I can’t say if this is a tea I will refill or not…I only got 10g or so of it, so I might get more to test it more since I think with this bag, I may only have one or two more steeps out of it, though I did get two decent steeps with this first round. I bet this is gonna be good as an iced tea, once it gets warmer.

How does this compare to something like Life Long Oolong of Happy Kombucha? Ihaven’t had either in a while, so it might be worth getting some again to try, but I think they’ll all be pretty similar.

I say that you should ignore the smell, and if it is fishy, give it a quick rinse first. I do feel like this is a nice tropical taste, but the heaviness that gets me through the winter. I do tend to like pu erh teas and I do like this one.

Ever have a tea that makes you gag? yea well I’ve found that tea.

this may be the worst tea I’ve ever had, EVER!!!

when I smelt the dry leaves I didn’t think I would like it, but that was the papaya smell. as it steeped it smelt much better. at the very beginning of the sip I get some creaminess from the chocolate, then I get the fruit, & that fishy earthy taste Pu’erh is known for. & then I gag, even before the mouth full is down my throat.

I’m going to attempt it with less leaves at another time, similarly I had to do that with the chocolate orange one, but that was more tolerable than this.

YUCK!!!

So this smelled like a tiny tropical paradise in the store so I promptly bought 25 grams and scurried home as fast as my legs could take me and prepared it.

It smells in the pouch very similar to many of the other pineapple teas they carry except for one thing ..this little smile at the end of each sniff of white chocolate sweetness..WHITE CHOCOLATE..and tropical paradise..I should be scared of such a bold combo but instead I am dancing inside.
and it doesn’t even smell like Pu-erh but something else…once brewed it smells richer and almost honey-like with a tiny lick of muskiness.

As my tea cools I have news! I GOT A JOB! Doing what I love helping people..I have never been this happy ..feels so damn good to be comfortable in my own skin..to feel i am a worthwhile person..that I belong and can make an impact in this world.I can’t wait to start.

Also new Tegan and Sara is dynamite! Buy now!

Aside:over.

First taste: nice..like watered down hot chocolate..in a very nice way.Sweet and dusky..the pu’erh just a sweet suggestion and the white chocolate is gently dancing with girls wearing grass skirts.Doesn’t blow my mind but it’s nice and light and warm.

Reminds me of:A shadow of hot chocolate,a light kiss of a tropical breeze.

perfect for : commitment-phobes,Pu’erh lovers(obviously),just one try.

Final verdict: Alright.Really didn’t like the sediment at the bottom.Pretty forgettable and I’ll be trading my 25 grams I think..there’s other drinks similar that are much better.

This tea was only okay for me. By the smell of this, and the other one that came out the same day, I felt I was going to love this one and only like ‘berry good’ it turned out opposite and now I have a tin of this… maybe i’ll like it better iced..

When I first heard about the ingredients I was taken back to a tea I had a few years back. It had similar ingredients but was a green tea and had added sugar hearts. It was tasty too. So suffice to say my curiosity was perked to see how this one would taste. The smoky quality and the deeper richness of the truly fragrant dry mix almost sold me completely.

When I tried it last night I found that it was a more pleasant experience than its predecessor. Very round and fresh to the palate. Not too much and not too little. A soothing gem if brewed in one of the DT specialized tea bags. I could see trying it flash-chilled and iced during the summer. Stay warm everyone!

This does not taste like a pu’erh, and for me that’s not a bad thing. I like the bg fruit pieces and the softness of the white chocolate. This would probably make a great base for a tropical smoothie. I may or may not reorder this, but I’m certainly not disappointed.

…Never again! I only got a 10g bag (thank god!) as it smelled really fruity and tropical in the store. This was my first Pu’erh and I am not in any rush to try any more. It was really fishy and like some of the other comments, I also noticed an oily coating on top which was kinda disgusting. I litteraly took one sip and did everything in my power not to spit it out…ewwwww.

Add my vote to the "blegh"s. It smells so dang good in the bag, but it tastes like warm, slightly sour, milk with a fruity after taste. Blegh. Saving the rest of my sample bag for the wife, but I don’t think this is one we’ll be adding to our collection any time soon.

I have never been a fan of Pu’reh teas and this blend did not make me a convert. I was feeling adventurous and picked up a small sample size not realizing that it had actual dairy in it – my fault for not reading more carefully. Given that I am lactose intolerant I should have cut my losses there … but alas no, I decided to have a moment of poor judgement and went for it. In looking at the blend there didn’t appear to be THAT many pieces of chocolate BUT I was so very, very wrong. The result, a very odd tasting blend followed closely by hours of nausea. Even without getting sick (due to my own stupidity) this was not one of the better blends from DavidsTEA – Pu’erh or otherwise. The dry tea scent leaves much to be desired and the brew is a combination of a sickly sweet and an odd creamy flavor with a rather unpleasant aftertaste. I thought that this could just be my natural aversion to dairy but even my cat turned away from this one. Sorry, this is not a keeper in my books.

Dry leaves smelled like fish, brewed tea also tasted fishy. Oily film when brewed.

I was really disappointed in this tea. I love pu’erh, and was excited for this new flavour that I got as part of David’s new pu’erh collection. I am glad I didn’t have more than the sample size or I would have returned it.

Picked up 25g of this gem at DT this afternoon. It’s packed with fruity flavourful and has a smooth base of the pu’reh. I steeped this twice and it was still great the second time around. I suppose this is due to the white chocolate, but I found it to be oily on top and I’d have to say that was my least favorite part of it. Made my glass tea cup look a bit scummy which I wasn’t too keen on.

Undrinkable. This smelled really good in the bag, but brewed it tasted and smelled like sucking on a musty old couch. I can’t imagine who thought this was a good idea to make.

I found it has a very fishy taste. When it says that it’s like you’re on a Hawaii beach they definitely hit the nail on the head.