Organic Pu-erh - 2 Reviews

I have always heard that pu-erh tea was supposed to be super fancy. I'm not a big fan of hot tea so I never looked into it. When I saw this bottle at the store today I thought, "Hey I can finally try this and see what the fuss is all about". Verdict: I don't like it. After doing some "after the fact" research, I find out that pu-erh tea is fermented. In my top 10 most hated drinks, 8 of them are fermented. I don't know why, I wish I could like fermented drinks. Everyone swears by Fentiman's and Bionade, but I can't enjoy them at all.

All that being said, this is a good clean tasting tea. There's only a slight peach flavor, and an even slighter ginger flavor. The latter really disappointed me because I really like tea with ginger in it. Even though I'm not big on lightly sweetened teas, even if this had more sugar in it I think I would still not like it very much. Sorry tea connoisseurs, it's just not my thing.

Things that should be weird to read on a beverages bottle, but that get me excited include "Real Fruit & Flowers." Obviously everyone wants real fruit in their drinks. Is there a single person roaming this Earth that prefers artificial fruit flavoring to actual fruit? If there is I'd like to give them my condolences for having the worst taste buds ever. Real flowers? That is just weird, yet exciting. I have grown to love slightly floral drinks during my tenure here at Thirsty Dudes. Two years ago if I drank this I would probably think it was garbage, but my tastes have been refined and I do enjoy it. It is a bit too floral though. It may be the pu-erh tea though. I just discovered that it's a post fermentation tea. I'm not positive what that means, but I think that mixed with the flowers pushes this a bit too far into the "I just ate something off of a plant at the botanical gardens" region.

The tea is very lightly sweetened, and it has some passionfruit juice in it to give it a little extra flavor. It's there, but a bit hidden under the flowers. The more I get the stronger the flower taste becomes. Now that I'm at the bottom fifth it's kind of out of control and I'm not longer a fan. When I started this I would have given it four bottles. By the end I would give it two bottles. I'll just even it out and call it a solid three.