Kusmi Tea

Short tasting notes are better than none.

I like this tea. The orange and cinnamon dominate. Before looking at the ingredients list I thought there was clove in this. I guess that’s the cinnamon + licorice taste? At any rate, this was tasty and a nice complement to dinner. Thanks to oOTeaOo for the swap!

Delightful!

The dry leaves smell delicious, and a little bit of the tea goes a long way. I love green tea, and the mint flavor was not overpowering like in most minty teas. This tea has the perfect balance between earthy and refreshing.

Atter having such a meh ginger yesterday, I wanted to remind myself what a good one tastes like. This turned into one of my staple travel teas last year, since I’ve been doing most of my transfers in Copenhagen, and in the lounge there they stack bags of it pretty much floor to ceiling.

There was a crazy blizzard when I was returning home for a brief visit right before Christmas, and my flight was delayed. It wasn’t so bad, four hours or something, but it didn’t really matter, since there were Christmas decorations and an open fire and mug after mug of this tea.

I had Ginger Lemon tea and very lovely company on my flight between Rome and Stockholm; double win. (Or maybe even a triple win, because I got two steeps out of this bag.)

Now I feel a little Romesick, because that’s where my tea stash is. <3 My pretties! My sweet treasures! I will be back soon.

I’m used to drinking this one bagged – I got a mixed set of Kusmi tea bags from my friend E., and this was the one that really did it for me. When the airport lounge I spend most of my transfer time at started stocking it, too, it somehow turned into one of my standard go-to teas for travel. I picked up a bag here and a bag there and never actually bought it for myself until this spring. Consequently, I’ve never had it in loose leaf form before.

The scent of the loose leaf is surprising. So much less of the lemon I’m used to from the bags, replaced by a grassiness and the slightest hint of bitter chocolate – both of which I have never encountered in the cup. Drinking it, though, is very familiar. I steep it far less than the recommended 3-4 minutes, as I feel it easily gets a bitter aftertaste. This is nearly completely avoided with a shorter steeping time (and without significant loss of flavour).

The perfect ginger-lemon tea is a bit of a Rosebud thing for me, to be honest.

I’m haunted by this Proustian reminiscence of a perfect bouillabaisse lunch shared with my best friend. We were getting ready to pay and leave when the waitress told us coffee and dessert was included, which was a nice surprise. What we got was a very dense, yet crumbly, beautifully aromatic white chocolate cake. The cup of tea I was given to go with it was an elegant green ginger-lemon; perfect for that cake. Retrospectively, that tea and this Kusmi tea have somehow merged into one, although if I dig deep, I think the restaurant tea was more sophisticated. I had a similar experience at Café Pesto in Hilo. I had a cold coming on and I exchanged my pre-, during-, and post-dinner cocktails (What happens on the island, stays on the island.) for three cups of it, enhanced by local honey. I escaped the cold unscathed. That tea also carried itself with more elegance and sophistication than the Kusmi does.

I think.

Until I know for sure, this will be the ginger-lemon green I stock.

[Purchased at Atatürk airport in Istanbul, April 2013.]

I’ve had other kusmi teas and they were too perfumey for me so I wasn’t too sure about this one until I opened the pouch. Not perfumey at all, just a nice caramel aroma! And a tasty cup as well! Yum!

Thanks Shmiracles!

I had some of this tea in a travel mug this morning. I made sure to bring something because the hot water on the cooler at work is broken, so I haven’t been able to make tea properly at work. The microwave is really weak and takes forever to get the water anywhere near hot.

This blend is sweet and very heavy on the bergamot. The base is dark and solid. It’s great for a morning tea.

Also I haven’t been posting that much this week or responding as much to your posts. I’ve got a new scheduling system at work and I’ve been busy with tons of minutiae- fixing everything that didn’t convert properly. I’m so sick of staring at a computer screen that when I’m not working, I avoid the computer as much as possible. I’ll catch up a little bit over this weekend.

Is it weird that this tea tastes to me like cherry cola? The “red fruits” in the description are definitely cherries and maybe some currants. There are also some flowery cherry blossoms in there, which tastes slightly syrupy. That sensation is probably strengthened by the bergamot oil’s mouthfeel. The caramel has a lingering burnt flavor to it- This in combination with the sharp bergamot flavor causes a tingle in the mouth, which definitely could pass off as carbonation. The base is a pretty mellow black blend, slightly sweet, slightly tannic.
Even though I have a sweet tooth, I think this tea may be a little too much for me. Just like soda, there’s a harshness to the sweetness and I won’t want that often.

Dangit. I really should have converted the Celcius on the package to Fahrenheit. I used water too hot for this tea. It shows. It’s astringent and not tasty.

I want to like rose tea, but I never seem to have good luck with it.

I just have the one teabag that was sent as a sample with one of my Kusmi orders, so I can’t even try again.

Hah, the last time I tried this, I had a sore throat then too. Still getting that cigarette taste. The lemongrass is a little more prominent this time. Just not a big fan of this tea.

For the last of the pot, I poured it over ice with some Splenda, and it’s much more palatable. Enough to raise my score a bit. I think it loses the cigarette taste. And feels good on my sore throat.

I definitely won’t be buying more of this though. Now to decide if I want to give or trade away the rest of the tin, or if I will just drink it iced…

My throat is kind of sore after last night’s drinking and talking loudly with friends. So I thought I would give this a try. I have a small tin of it from Kusmi’s wellness sampler.

I get what another reviewer said about it having a cigarette flavor/smell. It’s not overwhelming in my cup though. I think I might try steeping for a shorter time next pot – I set it to steep and then folded a load of clothes, so it is a bit strong. I was unsure of the water temp since green tea wants cooler vs boiling for herbs. I went with 190. As a result, I think the mate is overwhelming everything else. I get just a hint of lemongrass.

So shorter time, cooler water next time I think, and I want to try it iced.

I avoided this tea for awhile due to the odd, cloying smell. It seemed a little articial to me, which is not a complaint I’ve had about Kusmi’s tea in the past. I decided to go with a black tea today to hopefully mentally stimulate myself for my meeting in 10 minutes. I’m taking the tea with me and will report back later.

I chose this particular tea because a co-worker gave me a beautiful gardenia and it is making my desk area smell lovely. Flowers have been on my mind thanks to that. Bouquet de Fleurs 108 it is!

I wish the mini-tins had steeping instructions! To the website I go. Oh, this is interesting stuff… I might have to update the description. Okay, tea is ready to go! Will sip during my meeting and ponder tasting notes. Later ’gators.

Hmm… perhaps judging a tea by the smell is like judging a book by the cover. This tea is delicious! No wonder it was a favorite of the Russian royalty. I feel fancy-pants just thinking about drinking the same tea a royal family. There is a flavor coming through that reminds me of that initial smell. It reminds me for all the world of clove. It’s not overpowering, and not bad, just… a little off for me.

This tea kept me going through a brutal meeting. It was a good tea, but perhaps not one I’d order again. If you like Kusmi’s Russian blends then give this one a try. The Russian blends are all similar due to their bases but they are all unique in their own way.

Hmmm, I was hoping I’d like this for an after yoga, non-caffeinated drink. But no, not really. I think I’d rather have a decaf green over this. I’ll keep searching though.

Minty, not tasting the apple or the licorice. I might try it with a sweetener next time, and it might be nice iced for an after run drink.

I enjoyed this tea to begin with, but I’m kind of glad I’m finished it. I much prefer H&S Paris as an “earl grey with stuff in”, as the base is smoother and more forgiving.

So. Kusmi. You need to step up your game. Especially because your wee tins are $8+ each and a 4oz tin of H&S is $6 or so.