Bourbon Vanilla

Finally, after reading how much everyone seems to love Kusmi, I am getting a chance to try this thanks to Angrboda! I found this is the sample package from our swap! I was super excited to try it! First, I love vanilla, and second, my first Kusmi tea! Yay!

The scent of the dark brown leaves was more of a creamy scent than vanilla. I was smooth and thick smelling. It reminded me of a vanilla milk shake scent with the vanilla played down a bit.

While steeping I felt that the vanilla scent became more prominent. I also began to get smokey notes that scared me a little (I’m not a huge fan of smokey teas…). There was an over all pleasant maltiness to the brew. I approved. The liquor was a burgundy brown color that was a little redder than I am generally used to my black tea being. Very pretty in my glass Bodum Mug!

My first sip (unsweetened) was very smooth and malty. There was sweet creaminess peaking through but over all not what I would imagine as straight forward vanilla. There was also a slight smokiness to the aftertaste that surprisingly didn’t really bother me. Once sweetened the vanilla showed up a bit more. It was a decent vanilla flavor, but I found it to be more creamy than sweet. My perfect vanilla tea must have the right amount of sweet flavor to it. Once it cooled down a bit, the vanilla got stronger and I liked it better. yumm….

Over all a delightful tea to end my day with. Sadly it is very hard to get my hands on and not my favorite vanilla so far. If I ever am able to purchase it without a hassle, I might go for it. If I don’t get that opportunity, my tea cupboard will not suffer without it. : )

Hi all.

First of all, I had a little accident buying Kusmi the other day, so if anybody out there is fond of cinnamon flavoured black, I have a proposition for you. I shall post this on the boards as well. (Basically, I just grabbed a brown tin that looked exactly like the caramel… It was not caramel.)

Secondly, this tea is from aforementioned ill-fated Kusmi purchase and this one was not a mistake. It’s one I’ve been wanting to try for ages. Actually ever since I had that fantastic vanilla Nilgiri that Chi of Tea had and I became really interested in finding my perfect vanilla tea. Well, my second favourite anyway, as I’m giving up hope of the Chi of Tea vanilla ever getting back in stock.

What I like in a vanilla flavoured black is clearly present vanilla, and preferably with some leather-y undernotes of something akin to coconut. And it must be SMOOooooooooth, with a captial SMOO. The Chi of Tea one had all of this. I have yet to find the same flavour profile, fulfilling all requirements elsewhere although I have found some very acceptable alternatives.

This one had the right sort of aroma of the dry leaf. Not super sweet and obviously vanilla-y to the point of near cloying syntheticness, but something more rough and wood-y and leather-y. After steeping the vanilla flavouring smells subdued and the Chinese base is coming very nicely through. It smells grain-y and I wonder if there is some Fujian black involved here. Since they don’t say anything about it other than ‘Chinese black’ I’m assuming they’re using some sort of standardised blend of several to ensure a consistent flavour. There’s just something about it that smells rather Fujian-y.

Full marks on aroma, then.

The vanilla flavouring is extremely subtle. I’m getting a whole lot of ‘black tea’ and only a smidgen of vanilla. The funny thing is, in the Caramel from Kusmi, this subtleness is something I really like, but here I’m finding it vaguely disappointing. I mean, I don’t want a vanilla flavoured tea to be only sweet, but I do want there to be some sweetness, and I really think this could have benefited from a tad more of that aspect.

It does have potential, though. This would be one of the few that I might bother experimenting more extensively with the parameters to see what happens. A full boil heat, for example, in spite of what Kusmi says, and shorter or longer steeping times and less and more leaf. I think the steeping time would be the best place to start. It tastes that way.

I’m giving it a relatively low score to start with, then we’ll see later on if it can redeem itself under different conditions.

Angrboda is awesome…just need to point that out…thanks for this one as well, Dear!!!

It doesn’t smell overly vanilla but it’s ‘there’.
It’s not overly vanilla in the flavor – especially at first – but I agree with Morgana saying it’s sneaky! It sneaks in right at the end and smooths out the after taste nicely! As it cools a bit at room temp the beginning of the sip extends a woodsy or bark-like hint right and the beginning of the sip but then moves on to other notes on the tongue as you continue to sip.

This is nice. Nothing wrong with it at all but I do favor a few of their other offering over this one. Sure glad I got to try it tho and I would certainly drink it again and again :)

I read Lauren’s note after I’d already made this and discovered that I, too, made it too hot. Makes me want to go back to all the Kusmis I didn’t find very successful and try them at lower temps to see what happens.

In the tin, there’s a fairly mild scent of vanilla over earthy black tea. The vanilla is not strong in the aroma. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it isn’t present though because I’m under the weather, and my smeller and taster could be somewhat off today.

The vanilla in the flavor is kind of sneaky. I don’t taste it much until the after-sip, when it kicks in, sort of like the tail on the Caramel. Just sort of pops up and sweeps over the tongue, like a wave of flavor. And, like real ocean waves, some are bigger sweeps than others.

I do want to give it a shot at a lower water temp and see what difference that may make. It’s not as disappointing as the chocolates were to me, but except for those sweeps when the flavor really pops out, it’s not a stand out vanilla. I’m still liking Black Orchid and Vanilla Dian Hong for stand out vanillas.

Smells like green cocktail olives (which I hate) and tastes like wet cardboard. I adore Kusmi, and there are 8 tins on my countertop, but it seems I’ve found the one flavor I don’t like. I don’t get any vanilla out of this at all, and my overall impression is a tea made for someone who smokes. And possibly drinks hard liquor… or smokes a cigar… or likes wet cardboard…. lol, shrug

I miss this one.