Chocolate & Strawberry Puer

I’ve officially had a terrible day. I decided it was time to break into some comforting tea that does not require thinking. I just need something tasty and uplifting.

This tea is doing very well. It’s definitely puer, but mildly so. The strawberry is of the creamy frosting-like variety. The chocolate is sweet and delicious. Comforting indeed. It reminds me of those Japanese candies that are kind of cone shaped chocolates, half pink (strawberry) and half milk chocolate.

This might actually make a good latte, though I wouldn’t consider making puer into a latte under normal circumstances, today’s apparently a day for rule breaking.

I’ll report back on the latte.

EDIT: Almond milk added. Tastes okay, but better plain. Tasty stuff.

Thank you Ashmanra for this lovely sample! This all came about after a review of Spice and Tea Exchange’s Chocolate and Strawberry Puer…and Ashmanra (probably others also) were wondering if Lupicia was close to the same flavor or markedly different. Generously offering a sample for a side-by-side comparison, she sent me a sample.
So, I have 2 cups by my side and have taken time to sip and reflect on what I taste in each.
To be fair, this listing is under LUPICIA and this Puer is super fresh tasting Strawberry! More than anything this is dominant. I wish I could taste some chocolate but I don’t. No mocha, no chocolate at all. I could smell Puer when I placed my nose close to the wet leaves in the steeping basket but I realize the Puer flavor as richness and body in a general soft caramel way. I added sweetening and cream which made a latte which is very delicious. I consider this bright, robust Strawberry Puer. Tasting the Spice and Tea Exchange afterwards I noticed that the Chocolate is definately present up front with a more muted Strawberry woven around it. You can taste the Puer in the background and is more complex.

Both tea’s are worth having as unique flavor profiles. They are not the same at all. I am giving a rating for the Lupicia.

Another tea from the gracious Ashmanra
My oh my!
This is on the totally opposite side from my first taste of Puerh tea.
Obviously, this is flavored so it should be in a different category, however the Puerh is still present in this tea.
But, I just want to talk about the smell of this tea for a minute.
It is incredible.
I mean, if I could I would walk around with two mugs of this all day, one to drink and one to make any area that I am currently occupying smell utterly divine.
The strawberry in this tea literally smells like a French Strawberry Cream Tart I had one time.
So fresh, and so creamy!
I only get a little chocolate, which I am totally okay with, since I am not huge into chocolate tea.
More like a chocolate drizzle over the creamy tart.
The puerh in the background is bringing a bit of earthiness to the whole mix.
Taste is a little different.
It moves from Strawberry Tart to Strawberry Field.
Strawberries warmed from the sun with a bit of field dust on them.
Thats what this tea tastes like to me.
Which as I sit, looking out my icy window at the frozen landscape, this tea feels a little like a promise.
Thank you, Ashmanra, for giving me a bit of summer in the middle of January.

This is the sample that I received with my Lupicia Newsletter, and it is SO GOOD! OMG!

The chocolate and puer are perfect together, the chocolate is deep and dark and decadent, the strawberry sweet with a hint of berry tartness, and the puer is not as earthy as I’ve come to expect from Puer (and that’s a very good thing).

I love this!

mmmm thank you Mercuryhime! for this sample. I don’t have easy access to Lupicia here in canada so i asked for a taste of this when Mercuryhime and i swapped. I’ve been trying to branch out and explore a few flavoured puerhs as well as unflavoured.

I can get behind this one. The puerh isn’t overly strong but it’s much more present than the lsat few david’s tea flavoured puerhs i’ve tried. There is a chocolate taste here that’s quite enjoyable and it balances well with the strawberry flavour. It’s like a creamy chocolate strawberry taste. Actually della could take a page from this one :)

Thanks again mercuryhime!

Post workout tea…..

This one is good. It amazes me how well chocolate flavor pairs with puer. I get hints of the strawberry along with a chocolaty richness, and then the earthiness (in light amounts) of puer. The taste is very close to coffee. For those of you out there that are puer beginners, this one definitely has training wheels! And I enjoy this one so much better than the Sunny Fruits Puer which I also liked.

(I am wondering if I am now ready for real pu’erh……;D)

Mug method with a 2 minute steep.

I can’t remember when I had this to be honest…a few days ago I think. I have been crazy swamped with school stuff before spring break starts so its been a lot of bagged tea and old staples the past few weeks.
Anyway, the smell of this tea blew me away. It literally smells identical to a chocolate covered strawberry. I doubt I could tell the difference if I did a direct comparison. It smells juicy and delicious. I am always a little wary when a tea has a steep time of under 2 minutes, mostly because I would much rather have an oversteeped tea than an understeeped one. But I was good and followed the instructions and I am glad I did. It came out the perfect combination or strawberry, chocolate, and an earthy flavor that I am assuming is the Puer. It was delicious. This one is gonna have to go on my mental shopping list :)

Oh, Doulton, I am so thankful for this tea this morning! I have had a grumpy tummy since Sunday night and if I eat even just a little bit it starts to burn. Sometimes tea can aggravate it further, but puer usually makes it feel better. Then I remembered…

There was a sachet in the pouch from Doulton and its wrapper was labeled C&S Puer. I looked on the Lupicia website to get their steeping recommendations and saw that it meant chocolate and strawberry. My day just got way better!

I like puer tea, even unflavored, but I do divide them by aroma type. They seem to be either shrimp/fish or horse farm aroma. Horse farm is my favorite!

The sachet smelled wonderful! Wonderful! The steeped tea is beautiful chocolate and strawberry with a hint of horse farm beneath. The taste is sweet, smooth, chocolate and strawberry very well balanced. Neither steals the spotlight from the other. They are perfectly paired. The chocolate really does feel like real chocolate sliding down the throat. Ahhhh! This is wonderful stuff, and my tummy isn’t getting angry. Hopefully, this puer will put it to rights very quickly.

Between this one and American Tea Room’s Toasted Fig that i received from Quiltguppy, I may be ruined for unflavored puer forever! Planning to resteep…

Just as promised. A delicious blend strawberry and chocolate. The chocolate flavor is just like candy but in a mellow subtle way. I think I may have to purchase this one. I am very picky about strawberry and chocolate blends and this is the first one I have enjoyed. Delicious!

Smells delicious. Tastes like earthy dark cocoa with syrupy strawberries. Seems almost “malted”.

Very yummy.

It’s true that puer gives a certain “richness” to the flavor—especially to sweet, foody flavors like this.

I’m very glad I got to try this—thanks Lupicia for the free sample! If all the other flavored puers are like this, then they are all must-haves!

When I saw the packaging, I saw C&S Puerh and I was confused. What was C&S? It smelled fruity in the bag, and it tasted fruity in my mug! It definitely needed milk and sugar. There was a hint of berries as well as bitterness. It was nice and sweet with the slight cocoa notes coming from the puerh. Delicious blend!

I found this a pleasant surprise! I added a spoonful of milk as suggested in Lupicia’s newsletter, and had it with a side of dark chocolate creme-filled cookies, which was ideal. The dry tea(bag) had a slight musty smell (it is a pu-erh!) but in the brew all I noticed was a hint of earthiness. The chocolate and strawberry flavors are just a hint, which is perfect because so many flavored teas are cloying in this respect. I may have to buy some of this (but first I have a pile of Lupicia samples to get through!)

Before I get into my tasting notes, I would like to thank my good friend History Laced for going halfsies on tea with me! This is my first puer. It was a freebie given to us for making a purchase over $30 at the Lupicia tea store near us. I also want to publicly thank her for very cool journal she bought me for Christmas to write my tea notes in; I never get anything for Christmas, so I am super giddy about this. :D

Observation 1: As usual, I am at the kitchen table gossiping shamelessly as my boyfriend prepares the tea. He steeped the tea for 2 minutes in boiling water. The tea was not placed in an infuser, we used a tea strainer instead. It is a very pretty deep amber liquor.

Observation 2: The tea straight is very light flavor that I am assuming is the puer with the merest hints of a strawberry aftertaste. I do not taste any of the black tea in this blend, nor do I taste any chocolate.

Observation 3: With sugar to taste, I now begin to notice chocolate notes in the forefront. To me, it tastes as though I just had a cup of chocolate milk and followed it with a cup of strawberry milk.

Observation 4: With milk only, the chocolate and strawberry flavors are very muted; I only taste what I my brain is logically deducing as the puer.

Observation 5: With milk and sugar, there is a very light taste of chocolate with a much stronger strawberry presence. It is very smooth with no bitterness detected.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience. A fan of boisterous flavors, I am not sure whether or not the delicate notes of a puer is really my cup of tea. Next, I think I would like to try a puer without any extra bells and whistles and really figure out what puer itself tastes like. There’s still so much to learn and try and with my handy dandy journal, I should be belting these out like rapid fire, that is unless I end up turning it into a rant-book like I do every other miscellaneous scrap of paper that accidentally crosses my path. :)

Boyfriend review: Goes good with milk and sugar, it is very light otherwise.

Oh pu’er, what am I to do with you? Hold my nose and drink, apparently.

One whiff of this tea in my cup and I’m reminded of why I don’t like pu’ers. I smell the notorious earthy scent of the pu’er, along with a decent amount of sweetness. I can almost smell the chocolate, but not quite, and I don’t think I can get any strawberry or fruitiness at all. It all mixes to a generic sweet attempting to balance out the pu’er. But the taste, the taste is all strawberry! chocolate covered strawberries! in a heavy, earthy base. Pu’er tea never really tastes as bad as it smells (in my opinion, obviously). In fact, this tastes quite good. I like the strawberry and chocolate, and I like the way the flavor lingers in your mouth after you take a sip. The strawberry isn’t the candied sweet variety, it’s a slightly tart real strawberry flavor, which I really like. That in itself might having me reaching for this tea more often.

Thanks go to Crystal for this sample! ETA: The undertones come out a lot more on the second and third steeping, changing the flavor quite a bit. It’s less fruity, more earthy.

I’m not much of a fan of fruity teas but I’m always in search of a good chocolate tea, plus I love puerh. So my expectations were guardedly high. What I found was a delightfully strawberry, not-so-much-chocolate, very light puerh. The flavor is mostly one of those small ripe strawberries, the sweet ones, rather than the lush large red ones. Unfortunately I have to search a bit for the puerh, and the chocolate is subtle and phantom-like, appearing and disappearing. Drank it nude (well, the tea was nude), but looking forward to seeing the flavor development with a little almond milk. Will also use a bit more tea next time to see if that will intensify the chocolate or the puerh.

If I had to attach one descriptive word to this tea it would be “fun.”

Thanks for the sample, Crystal, big score on this one!

Before steeping:
Scent- Very strong stawberries, sweet and a hint of chocolate

After Steeping:
Scent- Chocolate with an undertone of strawberries
Color- Dark Aubern

Taste:
Nude-Black tea, hint of strawberries, very smooth with a hint of a chocolate after tast
With sugar- Chocolate and black tea, still smoth and a heavy strawberry taste
with cream- Black tea, slight strawberry taste—Lots of flavor
with Cream and sugar- STRAWBERRY!!!! with a slight after taste of chocolate
*prefered nude, there it is light and tasteful

This tea is so aptly named — it smells exactly like how it’s described. The initial scent is rich chocolate overlaid with the bright, luscious sweetness of strawberry. It is sweet and evocative of summer. The puer taste comes out in the steeped tea as an earthy, rich undertone that complements the strawberry and chocolate perfectly.

This tea is really delicious! Thanks Lupicia for the free sample!

I really did not know if I would like this tea but I am a huge fan of pu-erhs. The smell coming from the tea is incredible. I enjoyed mine with a splash of almond milk and that is perfect. I actually think I liked the strawberry element a bit better than the chocolate, but it is a very unique experience.

Most important thing to note here: this smells exactly like
http://tinyurl.com/bpuzd59
Meiji Apollo candy;
as others have mentioned.
They’re my favorite chocolates, ever.

That is why I picked this as my first puer. It was intensely musty for me the first time… I’ve since gotten over the initial shock of puer, and now I can’t get over this tea.

Brewed with one 8 sec rinse.
The sweet aroma develops a definite mustiness in the brewed tea, like wet soil. Utterly earthy and desserty at the same time; a pack of milky choco-strawberry candy brought to a rainy country field. Complete with the wet cardboard box, too, in the best way.
There’s a slight but sharp sour-astringency in the beginning, but subsequent steepings lessen that and give way to an amazing character from the tea… a pure, mild, natural, earthy sweetness, that I’ve never had before. And still lightly choco-fruity althroughout.

The 3rd and 4th steepings are the best; I started another batch just so I could get to those /magical/ 3rd and 4th when all the sour astringency is gone. Now, if I could figure out how to reduce that sour astringency from the start…

This tea is awesome! It has a great balance of flavors of the chocolate/strawberry and puer. I love how this tea doesnt have that distinct puer flavor and that additional flavors can come through. I like the deep chocolate flavor and the sweet strawberry finish to it. This is a great tea :)