Category Archives: Pu-erh

Stash Tea was kind enough to send us samples of their teas from their  pyramid tea bag collection to review.* Thank you!

Overall Rating:

Taste: 4.5 of 5 tea leaves – Quite a good cuppa!
Steepability: 5 of 5 tea leaves – This tea is easy to make.

Abby says:

Temperature: @200 (boiling point)
Steeped: 3-4 minutes
Served: Nothing added at first, then a little honey to round out the sweetness

Ok, does this tea hold up to the drool inducing name?  Well, it doesn’t taste EXACTLY like black forrest cake, but for a liquid, calorie and guilt free substitute it is pretty darn good!  The aroma is what I found most striking.  In opening the sealed bag it smelled as though there was a freshly baked chocolate cake sitting in front of me.  But, no there was simply a pyramid tea bag filled with pu-erh tea, natural milk chocolate flavor, natural dark chocolate flavor, cherry pieces, almond oil, vanilla extract, hibiscus, organic cocoa nibs.  Pu-erh is a fermented tea produced in the Yunnan Province of China with it’s own classification.

After the first couple of sips, I thought “Alright, I get where this is going – it is good, I can taste the tea and the chocolate, almond flavor”.  Then I added a spot of honey and then, wow, it was great!  It needed that little bit of extra sweetness in flavor to match the sweetness in the aroma.

Taste: 4 of 5 tea leaves – Quite a good cuppa!
Steepability: 5 of 5 tea leaves – This tea is easy to make.

Katie says:

Temperature: @200 (boiling point)
Steeped: 5+ minutes, just leave the tea bag in there.
Served: Nothing added at first, then a little sugar and and 2nd cup with milk & sugar.

As Abby said, yes, Stash Tea was kind enough to send us samples of their new pyramid tea bags. First, I love this type of tea bag. The pouches are pretty but also allow plenty of room for the tea to expand and steep as well as for you to see what the tea looks like. I opened the bag, sniffed and them inhaled a big DEEP breath. This tea has such a powerful scent of black forest cake that I couldn’t wait to try it. I made a cup — immediately! It was quite good. Of course, tea isn’t going to taste exactly like cake, but this is as close as a beverage can be.  A little bit of milk and sugar enhanced the flavors even more to make me feel like I was having dessert. I could almost believe that I am eating some calorie-rich treat. Luckily this is much more new-year’s-resolution friendly. Is anyone still keeping those??

Anyway, this tea is much better than any other chocolate tea that I’ve tried. And, it smells positively heavenly. I’m tempted ot keep some as potpouri. When I cut the bag open to photograph it I saw chunks of dried cherry. I even ate one, and it tasted great! I know, it was a idea that could have gone seriously wrong…I don’t advocate eating tea leaves but if you can pick out a hunk of cherry – yum!

Taste: 5 of 5 tea leaves – A must try!
Steepability: 5 of 5 tea leaves – This tea is easy to make.

*Please note that we are just as critical of free teas as the ones we purchase. If we get a sample we don’t like we won’t include it on our blog.