After being impressed with Pique Tea‘s Wuyi Oolong and White Peony White Tea, I had to get my hands on their puer. Their puer sports 250-year-old trees and triple toxin screened for mold and metals.
Pique Tea’s Pu’er Green Tea
I used their suggested 175F/ 79c water, but I find going around 185-200F/ 85-93c has a more pleasing, stronger taste. However, if you do not like bitter, go to the 175F/ 79c water temperature.
Pique Tea’s Puer Green is surprisingly good. It sips in smooth in texture tasting of driftwood with a strong stone fruit floral aftertaste that lingers for minutes after each sip. The aftertaste dominates the whole experience, which is fine by me.
The broth itself is a bit bitter, it might be too bitter if you are new to puer and use boiling water. It is less bitter than a young sheng/raw/green puer can be. This is a good jump to try puer tea, likely to be loved by those who enjoy floral oolongs and green teas.
For a seasoned puer lover, Pique Tea’s Puer Green isn’t that complex in taste, especially since it is instant verse a lovely gongfu session tasting the development of flavor as the tea unfurls, but the aroma is excellent. For some reason, it seems some of those who purchase this Puer don’t drink it and spray it on their face. To that I say, what a waste as it tastes good.
Pique Tea’s Pu’er Black Tea
This one they advise very hot or boiling water. I went with 200F/ 93c here for faster drinking temperature.
Pique Tea’s Pu’er Black Tea is my favorite out of all their teas! This one translated well to instant tea – it is distinctly shou puer with the profile of earthy chocolate, with a bit of dark wood. Using less water makes a good inky strong cup with a hazelnutty sharpness to it. Interestingly, there is a lightly silky buttery texture too. There is very little bitterness (only bitter if you use less water) and there is no dryness. This type of tea can often have a fishy or fermentation flavor when processed unclean conditions or not enough airing out, and Pique managed to avoid that.
Black/Ripe/Shou Puer is one of the easier teas to get into if you are new to tea as it has that similar richness to coffee, but not astringent like black tea. They also make excellent iced tea without any sweetener – just like iced coffee.
For my fellow seasoned shou puer drinkers, Pique’s Puer Black Tea is impressively good. Again, you lack the complexity due to the brewing style, but the flavor is there if you western steeped a good quality shou puer.
Like my previous Pique Tea reviews, the con with their product is the pricing is high. $58 each for 28 packets (12.6gram total weight), so around $2 a serving. The majority of Pique’s 28 packet bundles are $38, but I understand the price jump as they needed to use a high-quality puer to survive the instant tea crystal process. Packaging into single servings and triple testing for harmful elements also costs a lot. I would love to see a bulk option one day to bring the cost and package waste down for daily drinking.
Either way, both of these instant puer crystals are incredibly convenient to make a solid cup of tea. Puer Pique Teas came in very handy as I had surgery and my body was too banged up to gongfu brew puer.
(tea provided for review | affiliate links)
