Today is day number four of Pu Erh week and I feel like doing something festive in celebration of it being very cold and slowly creeping closer to Christmas. I made myself a nice little Perler Christmas Tree and had a bit of Pu Erh that does the best impersonation of a Christmas Time favorite that I have ever seen.
Pu Erh Chorange by Adagio teas has a wonderful portmanteau name and that makes me happy. Part of the Terra Sampler pack (and The Boo Erh Giveaway mentioned at the start of the week) it is a blend of Chocolate, Pu Erh, Oranges, and Blue Cornflowers. I will be honest, I have no idea why the cornflowers are there, they do not really match the aesthetic, but I am just being picky. The aroma is astoundingly similar to one of my favorite things about Christmas, the Chocolate Orange ball. Ever had one of them, they are a ball shaped like and orange that you bang onto something hard and it splits into ‘orange’ wedges of orange flavored chocolate. They are addictive and this tea smells just like one. At first all I noticed was the blending of chocolate and orange but the more I snuffled around in the tea (yes, you can think of a pig rooting for truffles) the more I noticed an earthy aroma letting me know that it was a Pu Erh and not an impostor.
Giving the tea a nice steeping brings out more earthy aromas with a hint of loam along with the potent orange and chocolate. The tea is very bright, if an aroma can light up a room and make it more cheerful, this one would do it. The liquid is very citrus heavy and sweet with milder notes of chocolate and earthiness.
The first thing I noticed was, wow, that is a smooth tea! The flavor, the mouthfeel, everything about it is smooth, I have a similar reaction when stuffing chocolate orange wedges in my mouth so the similarity continues. The taste blends chocolate and oranges together very well, it is balanced which can be hard with such dominating flavors, but what about the Pu Erh? No worries, it is there, it sneaks in at the very end of the midtaste and blooms into a delightful earthy flavor as an aftertaste and leaves a lingering sweetness. Out of curiosity I added a touch of cream, it surprisingly did not curdle (yay!) but didn’t really add much to the tea. As the tea cools it does get a touch earthier with a bit of a mineral taste. I think I just found my new Christmas cheer tea!
For blog and photos (and a Christmas Tree): http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2013/12/adagio-teas-pu-erh-chorange-tea-review.html