Sweet Love

(Note seems to no longer be available online)

Steep Information:
Amount: 3 tsp, 12.2g
Water: 750ml filtered 212°F
Tool: Breville One-Touch Tea Maker BTM800XL
Steep Time: 2 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: potpourri, floral, citrus, spicy
Steeped Tea Smell: cardamom, pepper
Flavor: black tea
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: spice
Liquor: translucent dark brown

This tea smells spicy, and when you start to sip you only taste the black tea, but as you swallow you are hit with a melody of spices.

I don’t not like the tea, but I really don’t like the tea either. It’s almost a chai flavor but lacking some of the homey spices that would make it my kind of chai.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/08/kusmi-loose-leaf-black-tea-sweet-love.html

This tea is spicy w/strong licorice flavor and sweet undertones. As I am a fan of licorice, (can’t resist Sambuca), this could turn into a favorite of mine. And who could resist the welcome caffeine boost from the guarana?

I got this one on Valentine’s day, in sachet form. The only time I reach for sachets is usually when I’m offered tea somewhere or I’m having a bit of nostalgia for myself. Hello, red rose? However this tea is in chunks, not powdered to death.

This is better than I expected. Then again, I like pink peppercorn and I’m a cardamom fan. I wish there was some sort of complimentary rose/lavender flavor in addition to the spices because they went quiet on the peppercorn (shame!) and marketed it as a love tea. Despite that the tea comes off liquoricy, and has a nice added touch with the ginseng.

If you like liquorice, you may fall in love with this for some reason.

This! This is the tea I wanted and didn’t know I wanted today. Got a set of Kusmi’s woo-ey well-being teas in mini-tins, and this is one of them.

It’s kind of like a very light chai, with a bit of licorice which is blended really well. I really like it, though I think it would be easy to over-do it. This is maybe a once-in-a-while tea, not an everyday tea.

Made it as a latte, with splenda & half&half.

The dry tea smells incredibly strong – a very heavily spiced black, with equally heavy sweet scents. I bought this tea pre-bagged in a set and I’m so glad I did. The individual tea bags are little fabric pouches that are one part convenient and three parts adorable.

The steeped tea has a very light, almost chamomile-like scent. The tea steeps to a light, brownish orange.

From the first sip, Sweet Love is incredible. I can taste a little spice which gives way to the liquorice root’s sweetness, and then the spice comes back and lingers. It’s really unlike any other tea I’ve tried, it’s incredible how long I can taste the spice after sipping. A little milk brings out the sweetness even more, and I feel like I’m drinking a fancy 300 calorie drink and not a good-for-you tea.

Adding sugar is in my opinion unnecessary, but I’ll try it anyway… And unnecessary is right. I find that the sugar distracts from the lovely sweetness that’s already there.

This tea might become a new favourite. A black tea with a natural sweetness and a lingering spice, served best with milk! Seeing as I only started with two teabags of it, it looks like I’ll have to order more!

This tea smelled like chai when it was dry, and like chai when it was brewed. With sweetener and no soy milk, this tasted like what I would describe as a “chai and friends” kind of tea. It was like a weaker chai with a little something extra. Some bitterness, some natural sweetness, some very slightly soapy kind of element. It was fine without soy milk, but it was so reminiscent of chai that I felt like it was begging for soy milk. It’s very heavy indeed on the cardamom (which I love about it), and I think the cinnamon and pepper really just create an aura of warm spiciness rather than contributing identifiably to the flavour. There’s almost something vaguely Coke-like about the aftertaste.

If you plan to use this as a latte base as I did, it will be satisfying to you if you like chai and especially chai with a lot of cardamom. Surprisingly (perhaps in a pleasant way), I didn’t really notice any of the flavour I generally associate with licorice root (i.e. licorice!) with what I tasted, but the flavour is obviously more easily perceptible when the tea has no soy milk, and I drank most of mine with milk. I found with tea quite stimulating, which makes sense given that it has tea and guarana, so don’t try drinking it in the late afternoon. It’d be interesting to do a comparison between this and Kusmi’s regular chai, with both being served without soy milk so that the difference is clearer.

Blech. Tastes like liquorice. There’s some other spicy flavors too, and I think I can taste the guarana? But mostly liquorice, or which I am not a fan.

Sweet Love’s spicy aroma pulls you closer and your tastebuds anticipate the ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and pink peppercorn setting them ablaze. Yet, the liquorice roots add a smooth and very sweet layer to this chai’s flavor profile that needs no additional sweeteners.

For those chai stalwarts who prefer spicy to sweet, Sweet Love is exactly what its name implies. This black tea pairs excellently with dessert and definitely adds a romantic air to its atmosphere (read: keep used leaves as potpourri).

This is by far one of my favourite Chai-Tea blends. The tea itself is delicate enough to allow a steep that lets the spices come through without a bitter finish. It doesn’t require milk or sugar to be delicious, as some chai blends do.

I would however, recommend separating the cardamom pods and pink pepper and giving them a bit of a crunch before you brew. This brings out their flavour much more than leaving them whole.

This was the first Kusmi tea I tried from my order. I was really impressed. I’d never really had a tea with licorice root before, so I wasn’t expecting that sweet aftertaste, and was pleasantly surprised when I swallowed and the sweetness lingered in my mouth. With vanilla soymilk, or even just milk to bring out the sweetness of this tea, there’s no need to add sugar. It’s dessert all on its own. I think the name, Sweet Love, fits it extremely well.

The tea itself is really beautiful was well. Colorful bits and pieces all mixed together. It’s a very festive-looking tea. The tin is beautiful. I love the little drawing on the side.

I gave this a go and (sorry to everyone who loved it) but I honestly found the flavor very odd and just not very good. The novelty of the licorice was not lost on me though. I did find it fun to take a sip, and then feel the natural “sweetness” build in the back of my mouth. That was certainly a very interesting experience. However, on the basis of pure taste alone, I did not find this blend very appealing. I could just be a victim of my own palate here though, as I’m not very partial to herbals. Make no mistake, although this blend does contain some black tea, it consists predominately of the other herbal ingredients (ginseng and liquorice roots, spices, guarana seed and pink pepper). Maybe that’s why it put me off. At the very least I can use the remaining tea from my sample canister for a quick “pick-me-up” (guarana seed has double the caffeine of a coffee bean). If someone would like to suggest some sort of alternate preparation method, I’d be happy to revisit it.

It smells very spicy, I expected it to taste like cinnamon but it does not. Im not sure if it tastes like liquorice because any liquorice Ive ever eaten wasnt delicious- quite the opposite, it was horrible but this tea IS delicious, what I like most about it is the after-taste which is very sweet and lasts for a long time.

I don’t even usually like liquorice, and this is one of my favorite teas! It tastes sweet, slightly spicy but not overwhelming. The loose tea is beautiful with pink peppercorns and big green cardamom pods. It smells delicious, like chai and candy, and doesn’t require much added sweetener. The color could be prettier, but isn’t a drawback. A must buy whenever I’m in Disney World’s Epcot!

It’s good with splash of milk and honey. Close enough to real chai but not quite. Spiciness level is satisfying if you like spicy tea. I wish they’d take out the licorice, then it’d be perfect.

Fans of licorice — do not miss this!

Smelled like a peppery chai in the tin, but it’s a different story once steeped. Sweet Love becomes an aromatic concoction with a strong licorice note that is at the same time herbal, sweet, and spicy, quite away from the realm of ‘chai.’ The ginseng is there, and gives it a big herbal kick, almost covering up much of the black tea. The after-taste after you swallow is sweet and spicy, just like when you eat black licorice bars.

It’s definitely not for everyone, but has become one of my favorites. There’s nothing quite like it. I enjoy it plain and unsweetened, the way Kusmi recommended it.

This is disappointing as it smells and tastes too orange-y. It has cardamon in it, maybe that’s why people says it’s spicy. I look for “peppery” or “gingery” in a spicy tea, so it was disappointing.

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!

I loved this tea. I drank the version in teabags, but the tea pieces were big so it had full flavor. The teabags are muslin and very roomy. I could taste the tea and the liquorish and other spices. It was all very balanced and smooth.

this tea is quite tasty and should not be steeped too long or it’s harsh