Kusmi Tea

Strawberry/Fruity green tea is my favourite. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf makes my all time favourite (previously reviewed) but they no longer ship to Canada. At all. I couldn’t even ship some to my sister in laws in the States as i needed to order with an American credit card…

Anyway, i read the hype about Kusmi and decided that this tea was the best alternative and i NEEDED it.

I wanted to love this tea so much but to me it tastes like kitchen spices… As if someone accidentally added basil…or its been sitting in a spice cupboard beside curry powder. I’m on cup three…but it just isnt my thing.

Maybe i’m not refined enough :) i like my big American sized tea bags with lots of flavouring and perfume…ha!

I thought I might as well try their last “Detox” blend. Some reason I thought this was going to be blueberry. I guess because of the name lol. I should’ve read the ingredients: Green Tea, Mate, Mint, Natural Pineapple Flavor, Rooibos, Stinging Nettle Leaves, Sunflower Petals #DOH

It’s minty alright, but the pineapple was the best part about it, but it was mild. I agree with Cameron that there needs to be a lot less mint and more pineapple. :)

Thank you for this delicious sample, Cameron B. ^^

While finishing up the Watership down Netflix series, I was sipping on this and it’s pretty yummy. Mild though. I was expecting the in your face flavor like Vicky’s Sponge Cake (which was raspberry all the way) that I tried the other day.

It was a nice blend of the red fruits, and you can’t really go wrong with cherry, strawberry, raspberry except if you make it artificially sweet (and this one doesn’t) so there’s no cough syrup taste at all. It is very mild though.

I got a beautiful package of tea samples today. Thank you Cameron B. :D Sitting in the car with the package was intoxicating. I couldn’t wait to get home! It smelled so good. I chose this one first because the only Kusmi tea I have ever tried (and drink on a regular basis) is their detox… And that’s for health reasons. I’ve always been curious about the rest of their teas, especially this one. I was delighted to see this was one of the samples. :D

Hardly any experience with flavored teas. I once tried a flavored matcha, and it literally tasted like an artificial green apple in turpentine. Up until my first Lupicia order, I have never really liked flavored teas. What I’ve found is… I just don’t like artificially flavored tea. I can’t stand strawberry Nesquick but I could eat a big bag of fresh strawberries. So now, after that decent experience, I don’t have to shy away from certain flavored teas. :D

Anastasia, what a beautiful name for a product. It smelled fancy, perfumey, citrusy, bergamot. Oh my, will it be too perfumey for me? I wondered. Nope, it wasn’t. The dark mahogany liquor did not have a too-perfumey-taste or too floral taste (thank goodness), it was a yummy bergamot with a good balance of natural lime and citrus notes. I like it!

150 ml, 195°F, 2 steeps: 3 min, 4 min.

Stumbled upon this and it was perfect for a rainy day.

Quite enjoyed my five or six steeps of this today. The first few have that lovely sweet condensed milk thing going on, moving into more floral followed by vegetal.

Such deliciousness, especially when I am in the mood for a milk oolong. 5 steeps, the last two began to lose the milkiness in favour of floral oolong. Lovely.

The handwriting on the pouch indicating the name of the tea is tricky to discern. It could well be Go Pang or Ga Pong or several other variations. I need to go back to the Kusmi store in Montreal where I bought it and give them hell for that.

One of the other places we went yesterday was Kusmi, since I’ve never been before. I have of course tried a handful of their teas, and ordered from them online – but it’s always a different experience seeing a tea place in person, and getting to interact with the teas/teaware they carry physically.

They were sampling this tea, so we of course gave it a try. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a white tea from them before? In fact, I don’t think I was aware that they carried white tea at all. The guy who gave us the sample seemed to be somewhat confused too, as he went back and forth several times between saying this was white tea and saying it was green tea. I honestly wasn’t totally sure, until I got home and looked up the tea on their website.

It was pretty good, especially for something coming from a prebrewed carafe – often teas that sit over a long period of time in those carafes or that are brewed in large quantities all at once can get a little… weird? I don’t know – not bad but just not great representations of the flavor of the tea when you brew it normally. I think maybe that happened with the base a little bit, as it definitely tasted far less delicate than a silver needle generally should taste, and was displaying a weird mix of flavor notes, such as black tea-esque malt notes? Sort of strange. The raspberry/rose were very nice though – both equally present and quite fragrant and well pronounced while still being smooth and not dipping into that weird perfumey/artificial sort of quality.

I liked the sample – though since it appeared this tea was only sold in a very large bulk amount I wasn’t quite interested in picking up that much of it. Though, I did end up buying a tin of the one other white tea they were carrying since it smelled really interesting to me.

Took advantage of the Kusmi sale in December. I got a can of this and the regular Detox (the lemon one). I’m going to bet more people prefer this taste over that one. I love grapefruit but there’s a little too much peppermint in there for me so I think I’ll stay with the lemon one.

During the sale, I just chose the largest can of the original green tea-lemongrass one since I do start the day off with it for water retention… Etc. and when it arrived…

Omgosh it’s as big as a baby. lol I sure hope this stuff stays fresh for a long time.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays :D

This is the last tea from my swap with Cameron B. It’s been lovely trying everything! When I tried this one plain, it tasted, well plain. I don’t notice any flavor other than the taste of the mild black tea. It’s nice with some milk and sugar. I don’t mind a plain-tasting black tea, it’s just not what I was expecting.

I got a sample of this from Cameron B.! Thank you!

While I’m happy to get to try another one of Kusmi’s Earl Greys, I had been avoiding this one because of the name. It reminds me of a boy I should have been kinder to in high school. I’m sorry, Marcus! I was a monster back then!

Anyway, this one doesn’t really stand out to me. It’s basically just a mild EG with a bit of orange essence. The orange is almost muted by the bergamot, too. I feel like I’ve had this before. It’s really similar to Mélange Hédiard, if you’ve had it. I dunno, I’m just not really feeling this one.

Work – 12:00 PM

This was a single individually-wrapped sachet from my desk drawer. It must have been a free sample from one of my past Kusmi orders. Love the bright orange wrapper!

Hmm… This is not all that flavorful. It’s not weak, but it’s rather one-dimensional. I do get some malt and briskness with a bit of raisin, which I assume is from the smaller Assam portion of the blend. Perhaps it’s the Ceylon that’s not tasting like much? I’m surprised that it has some astringency after just a 2.5-minute steep. There’s a hint of bitterness as well, though it’s not unpleasant.

Mostly it tastes generically tea-ish. Almost like the Lipton variety, but with a bit more flavor from the Assam. Meh!

I got a sample of this from Cameron B.! Thank you!

Upon first sniff, this seems like your average Earl Grey. Perfumey, romantic bergamot and that’s about it. Not that I mind. However, the flavor has a very noticeable lime note in addition to the usual citrus bergamot brings. That’s interesting! I’ve never had lime in my Earl Grey. Others are saying they taste lemon, too, but I’m having trouble distinguishing that from the bergamot.

Anyway, I’m really enjoying this. It makes perfect sense to add more citrus to an EG. I haven’t had many lime teas because artificial lime isn’t really my thing, but this tastes natural enough. I’m happy with my choice of daily work tea, and I’m happy I got to try this. It’s yum.

Added notes: Sip down. Wow, it took me two full years to finish this? >.< I did buy the biggest can and it was huuuuuge. I guess I was once serious about detoxing. haha. Overall, it’s still my favorite detox for whatever reason lol. I’ve tasted others that taste better per se but sometimes I just like a pleasant boring, errr mild tea :P, for whatever reason and I reach for this the most if I need a quick detox. I love lemongrass so that’s probably another reason.

I can not stand their blue detox and can barely tolerate the one in the yellow can but this one tastes pleasant to me. No mint for one and the other two have a lot of mint. I put a few shakes of True Lemon powder in it or put a TeaVivre Lemon slice in it. I’ll probably order more.

Thinking of all my tea friends here and hoping that you and your loved ones remain safe during this trying time. I’m okay here <3.

3rd note on this. I got the tea bags for a trip and it tastes different. Still good, similar but different. I had noted that they changed it for their 10th anniversary in 2017 in my first note, and I didn’t notice the difference. Now I do. The bitterness seems to be toned down (different mate blend), little more woodsy. Either formula is good for me because it’s a simple morning kickstarter.

So the last time I reviewed this I wrote about the taste but didn’t know how it worked. Been starting off my day with a cup of this plus 1 or 2 infusions since then and it works if any of you are wondering lol.

I recently read that Kendall Jenner drinks 12 cups of this a day. First, I had no idea who she is. I don’t live under a rock, but I don’t watch tv much I guess. I wondered are they 12 × 3g servings/tea bags or is she counting resteeps… Because if she is actually using 12 servings daily (and this works), she’d always be in the bathroom. o.O

My artbitrary thoughts for today. lol