cteresa

cteresa drank St Petersburg by Kusmi Tea

I have always wanted to love Kusmi tea – the tins! So pretty, and stackeable (a really important attribute for residents of my tea corner). But whenever before I have had Kusmi tea, I have always been underwhelmed. It´s not totally fair to judge a tea by how it´s prepared on cafés and teashops, so I have always meant to give a fair trial to Kusmi tea. And this is it, got 50 grams of St Petersburg (and such a pretty pretty bag they gave me!), brewed it semi-carefully ( tap water, attention to temperature, and medium attention to time) and well here goes.

I don´t really like it. It smells interesting, very interesting, caramel and bergamot and fruity, very intense. Brewed, I get fruit and caramel and interestingly the bergamot is not overpowering. But rather than a symphony the flavours are all like an instrument tuning, a lot of flavour and it seems to be clashing somehow. And I I do not like the base tea, must retest again, it came up bitter. I will keep retesting, got nearly 50 grams to play with, but maybe I can not brew this up any better than those cafés. Meh.

2012-10-26 05:49:05 -0400

200 °F / 93 °C

4 min 0 sec

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Ysaurella 2012-10-26 14:56:37 -0400

I’m with you regarding this tea…meh…bof bof et super bof but on the other hand I keep the idea I am maybe too hard with this brand because I expect too much from it

cteresa 2012-10-26 16:23:33 -0400

I do not know if it was expectation – I mean it would be useful to like it, I so like the tins, but not sure I am really biased to expect a lot! So far I have had their tea in cafés or tea shops, I could always blame not loving the tea on it not being done properly ( even if I sometimes have fallen in love with teas when having them outside home) so I was a bit disappointed this first time I bought it home.

This brand is so ubiquituous, it´s so trendy, lots of gourmet stores have it and quite a few places serve it. Very chic. And OMG have you see their little sampler packs? soooo cute. But I think if it was expectations my reaction would be sort of different, it would be more “well I am a peasant and obviously can not understand what is going on here” which is my reaction to fancy Darjeelings or japanese teas (though I am starting to really get japanese teas). But this one, my reaction was more immediate, it was as if I could taste what this tea was about and just was not impressed. Too much stuff and the base, bah, I am a peasant regarding Darjeelings admittedly, but this base tea is even more peasant than I.

Ysaurella 2012-10-26 19:52:34 -0400

I have 4 big tins …250gr of 4 of their teas…I gave all the st Petersbourg to my mother+ half of my Nanah à ma menthe. I keep the big tins and I can put my mariage frères or dammann frères in it :)
I have a small set as well, very cute; I reuse the small tins to take other teas to the office

timmy 2012-11-13 19:07:06 -0500

I faced this same problem, and I have stumbled upon the secret to this tea (and many others of the Kusmi flavored black teas). Lower the temperature to around 185 Farenheit, and steep the tea for much longer: 6-7 minutes. You’ll be in tea heaven.

cteresa 2012-11-14 09:42:26 -0500

Thanks I will give it a try! 85 C google says, will keep it in mind.

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cteresa

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