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No one’s really written a note on this one either? Jeez.

I got this as a sample with my order and I figured I could use it this morning because I have a headache probably due to suddenly seeing the sun before 8am because my boyfriend has no idea how to not wake up at the crack of dawn. And people were getting rowdy down in the hotel bar last night. Seriously. Thursday night, hotel bar. Miami is that way, people.

This is nothing impressive. It really just tastes like gingery green tea which isn’t exactly what I was looking for…I guess I can kind of taste the mate in here. So now I know, don’t be lazy and just break out the travel kit for some guayusa.

This is unremarkable and there are too many tasty mate blends out there to look to this one for a boost. Unless you really like spiced green tea that’s falling short of chai.

I tried this at a café – teabag (nice mousseline one, must be said) on a mug, and nearly boiling water from the coffee machine.

Kusmi is becoming rather easy to find at some trendy cafés and bakeries. So far I had not much luck with their blends, and that is an euphemism: their Detox blend, from the same café as this one, I loathed. But this was a lovely surprise. It´s nothing extraordinary, green tea and presumably mate, cinnamon noticeable and then cardamom and ginger. But the brewing method (bag in a mug, water from coffee machine) seemed to work really well with this and it was a perfectly nice cup of tea. Maybe I am overrating it because it turned out better than I expected, but a nice surprise indeed.

And ah, now I found a Kusmi tea I like, I do not like its tin. That is ironic. Not that this was a must have, or something I needed for personal collection, it´s just my insane mad lusting over Kusmi tea tins (though not the teas).

I was bracing myself for completely hating this since, even though it smelled good dry and brewing, the last Kusmi mate I had tasted thoroughly awful. Well, I was surprised (there seems to be a lot of that surprise happening with the Kusmi I’ve sampled…) It’s essentially the green chai I never would’ve wanted to sample—except it doesn’t taste wrong like I’d always thought a green chai would.

Unsweetened (on the first steeping at least), it tastes like a bit of a harsh cinnamon bomb in that it has the sharp taste of something to which too much cinnamon and nothing sweet has been added. Sweetened, it’s interesting. Sweetened and with soy milk, it’s a different and pleasant take on chai. You wouldn’t necessarily guess it was made with green and mate teas unless someone old you, because it produces a nice, light chai latte that doesn’t taste grassy or weedy in any way. It’s less fragrant and spicy than a regular chai, kind of like the polite, delicate younger sister of normal chai or something, but I think the flavour is still essentially chai. A key difference between this and the other Kusmi chais I’ve had (Sweet Love and Tchai) is that cardamom is not one of the most dominant notes here (its place is taken by cinnamon).

It’s good, but if you want chai, there’s better stuff around. It might be a good tea for you if you like to rotate different chais or something like that.