Owen had an equal number of chocolate puffs, butter puffs and blueberry puffs. After he ate 27 chocolate puffs, some butter puffs and blueberry puffs, there were 77 puffs left. The number of butter puffs he ate was thrice the number of blueberry puffs he ate. The number of butter puffs left was 21 more than the number of chocolate puffs left. How many chocolate puffs were there at first?

	Chocolate puffs	Butter puffs	Blueberry puffs	Total puffs
Before	1 p + 27	1 p + 3 u + 21	1 p + 3 u + 21
Change	- 27	- 3 u	- 1 u
After	1 p	1 p + 21	1 p + 21 + 1 u	77

Number of butter puffs and chocolate puffs was equal at first.

1 p + 3 u + 21 = 1 p + 27
3 u = 27 - 21
3 u = 6

1 u = 6 ÷ 3 = 2

Total number of puffs in the end
= 1 p + 1 p + 21 + 1 p + 21 + 2
= 1 p + 1 p + 1 p + 21 + 21 + 2
= 3 p + 44

3 p + 44 = 77
3 p = 77 - 44
3 p = 33

1 p = 33 ÷ 3 = 11

Number of chocolate puffs at first
= 1 p + 27
= 11 + 27
= 38

Answer(s): 38