Kusmi Tea

I’m still shocked that I like this one so much but I do…soothing and sweet…

I still really like the smell of this…very unique and smooth. My first cuppa the day! YAY!

I recently got a little bit more of this and am drinking it now…totally LOVING it more than before so I am upping the rating! It’s caramel but not obnoxious! It has a hint of fruit too. It sort of remind me of a cross between a Werther’s Original and a Creamsicle Candy.

Scent: Floral and Caramel
Color: Orangish-Brown
Wet Leaf Scent: Caramel and Woodsy
Taste of Tea: Primarily Caramel and black tea taste with Bergamot and a little wood-like taste.

This is a tasty and competent black tea. I’ve enjoyed other Christmas teas more and the fact is that my personal tea aesthetic wants to be overwhelmed by the spices of Christmas. Instead of just an overtone or two and a slight note, I want to have my socks knocked off by the holiday effect.

But for many drinkers, less is more and you will like this a lot. Just because I don’t do subtle does not mean this tea will not be wonderful for you.

I found this tea as part of a loose-tea selection on a gourmet food website that had much more reasonable shipping fees than Kusmi’s website (score!)

As I open the tin I’m struck with the mouth-watering odor of marzipan and I’m surprised when I don’t see any almond slivers mixed in with the tea. As the tea steeps, the scent of green tea slowly creeps back in. When I take a sip I can clearly taste the nuttiness of the tea base which meshes very nicely with the almond. It’s a very sweet almond flavour too, and not artifical at all, in my opinion. As I drink more of the tea it seems to build up in the mouth, becoming more prominent.

I’m in love with sweet almond and marzipan so I seems only natural that I love this tea. It’s clearly not powerful, robust breakfast fare, but I think It would be a wonderful dessert tea.

Another tea from my assorted selection of teabags (good quality muslin kind) that I bought to brighten up my work day.

Online it’s described as having a floral taste, and yes, maybe slightly. What I noticed, though, from smelling it, was grapefruit. It tastes of grapefruit too, but only lightly. There’s the slight texture of green tea, a stronger texture than black Darjeeling, but not by much.

I have a feeling I’ll be buying this after I’m done with the samples.

Well, it is sweet and it is lovely. Normally I don’t go for things that are licoricey, but it was pleasantly tolerable. I’m a little worried about the guarana…in a few minutes I’ll probably be flying.

Definitely don’t steep too long as it doesn’t need it. Smells amazing!

This is a pretty subtle Earl Grey. I like the added aromatics.

Just an okay breakfast tea.

Five down, four to go! Yup, I have been christmas present shopping. These were all the easy presents, to the people who are usually difficult to buy for. But this year I have actually been supplied with wish lists. For! The! Win!!! I guess my grandfather wasn’t about to risk a repeat performance of last year where he got three copies of the same book.

When I was about halfway done I passed a cafe and sat down for a cup of tea and a yummy yummy chocolate orange cake. If ever there was a spongecake rating website, I’d give that one at least a 95.

This tea was a bad choice though. Oh the TEA was just nice. Very jasmine-y aroma and a surprisingly light brew. I thought it tasted pretty good, and was for once pleasantly surprised by Kusmi. They’re better than your average teabags for sure, but I’ve always felt that Kusmi was generally just the teensiest bit overrated. I liked this one, though. It could have had a better balance between tea and jasmine as the majority of the flavour was jasmine, but it could definitely have been so much worse too.

It’s just a shame that it was a far too delicate tea to go with the cake I had chosen. :/

Nice bright fruit flavor mellowed by sweet caramel. Reminds me of the Tower of London blend by Harney and Sons.

Sigh I promised I would write a new note, when I had bought a new one.
Now I wish I hadn’t.

Turns out my tea isn’t old. It really taste like that! It’s such a letdown that I feel myself getting sadder and sadder for each sip. Did it really taste like that Sips Yes it did!

Let’s start at the color. Nice decent orange, Very Earl grey-ish.
There a wiff of bergamot, but there so little that I have to stick my nose into my cup. Already disappointed I take a sip … And it taste like Earl Grey. It’s not the taste I am disappointed at, it’s the lack thereof. This tea is so stingy about the bergamot, I can hardly taste it!

I tried to make the steeping time longer, but it dosn’t help.
I twirled the teabag around in the mug, it only left small leaves at the bottom.
I even tried to force some juice out of the leaves with a spoon!
But nothing helps.

I know some people who aren’t fond of bergamot or strong tasting teas, so this will be waiting for them in my cupboard. But I’ll have to find something better than this, to other people.

Oh no I didn’t….But I did. I poured some of that widely hated, and widely loved, Earl Grey tea into my cup.

I always have some Earl Grey in my cupborad in case someone would ask for it. Today I felt like trying something “new”. And since I havn’t had Earl Grey for ages, I took this out.
Like many others, I don’t cherish Earl Grey as much as I should. I blame my mother, she forced this tea into me whenever I was sick. But this blend of tea is the reason that tea became so popular, so I can’t hate it. You have to be a little gratefull in life.

The smell isn’t impressive. Maybe the tea itself is too old?
Good thing noone ever asked for it then. I would hate to serve a bad tea.
Can’t comment this tea, sorry. I will return, when I have bought some new ;)

This is one of my pretty teas.
Pretty as in: Standing in my teashelf looking handsome.

The tea itself is orange in color, smell sweet and taste like… Tea.
It’s sweet, but that’s the only “note” I caught beside the taste of a black tea.
Neutral like Sweden, I guess.

It’s actually nice to sip while I am eating cereal.
So I guess it’s good for breakfast, when you just need a little strong tea-tasting tea to keep you company.

This was a truly delicious tea. I liked the way the orange, spices, vanilla, and almond all blended together so well that they became one flavor. I also liked the fact that I could taste the black China tea. The spices didn’t overwhelm the tea the way they can so often in teas with added flavorings.

Bought this at Fox & Obel in Chicago on vacation. It was $12 for a box of 20 teabags, but I figured “what the heck” since I’d never tried this brand before. I need to give it another chance, but it certainly wasn’t worth $12, based on my first try. The teabags are muslin and look pretty fancy, but they’re not as full as UK teabags usually are. The caramel flavour was pretty weak, and the scent was pleasant but not amazing. Overall an okay cup of tea but definitely not anything to spend that much money on. I’ll see if the second try will change my mind (some point down the road)!

First time I had this I found it completely vile. Too perfume-y. Too flower-y. Too dust-y in flavour and all together too grandmother-y.

Morgana had it recently though, and didn’t find it nearly as unpleasant as me. That would be difficult as out of all the people who have posted about it, I liked it the least.

So I decided that I ought to give it a second chance.

I still think it smells like a flower-scented soap, though.

It’s still pretty flower-y too. eyes it And it’s still a bit like drinking soap water.

I dunno…

If I can make it through the cup without going blergh! and dumping it, I’ll lift the rating a bit and possibly manage to somehow finish off the sample tin. If I can’t I’ll call it a loss and will either foist it upon give it away to someone else or get rid of the rest of the leaves.

Either way, I already have something FAR BETTER lined up to wash it out with.

ETA: I think I’ve worked it out. I admit it, I’m eating sweets while drinking this. Foam sweets, which apparently seems to be my preferred sort at the moment (normally I’m a licorice girl), so my tongue is more or less comatose with sugar. And taking a sip right after the sweets really removed a lot of the flower-y unpleasantness! AHA! So I added some cane sugar to the cup, and while it’s not a fix-all solution, it helps some.

I wish my postman would fill out the ‘from’ field when he gives me that little notice about a package to pick up on the post office. There’s one there now, waiting for me to pick it up on saturday. It’s either my Series 3 from Andrews & Dunham or it’s a package from JacquelineM, and I’d quite like to know which. Sorry, JacquelineM, but I’m hoping for the former here, because if it’s yours, then I’ll have to start getting concerned about the A&D.

In the meantime, another Kusmi sample. I’m a little concerned about this one. The leaves… They smell of soap. And lavender. I like lavender. As, you know, a flower. Or as an essential oil to help me sleep if I’m having trouble in that department. I don’t have that good experiences with drinking it. I think I’ve had an Earl Grey with lavender in it once which I sort of liked, but that one didn’t smell of soap!

After steeping, the aroma is less soap-y and more citrus-y, but still very very very grandmother-y. Yes, that it. Grandma perfumes and cleaning agents.

Earl Grey gone girly. There is definitely bergamot-y dusty notes here underneath all the grandma-ness. There is sooooo much perfume-y flower-y badness here. It’s so bad I can’t even come up with another way of describing it. It’s so bad I’ve become like record with a scratch in it. Perfume! Grandma! Perfume! Grandma! Perfume! Grandma! Perfume! Grandma!

Ew. I’m dumping this.

I had this on the train home from my parents’ last night and once more came to the conclusion that Kusmi is indeed drinkable but otherwise overrated. This one isn’t as perfumed as other teas of the brand that I’ve tried, but it’s not particularly memorable either.
This review however must be taken with the understanding that making tea on the train involved hot water from a thermos rather than freshly boiled, so the steeping process was far from ideal. I think I might just stick to coffee on the train from now on.