Christmas (Rois Mages)

Hi everyone! (Arms waving wildly and happy dancing!) I am finally back after a long hiatus due to lots of work, skating in an ice skating show for the first time in a long time, general holiday insanity, and trips. So, settled down with my tea and terrified at how behind I have become in tasting notes! I missed everyone! I hope I haven’t missed out on anything exciting!

Now for the tea… I bought this tea during my New York tea with intentions of showing off the nice Christmasy tin during the holidays. Sadly, I was so busy that I only opened it this past week! Oh well… I have heard so much hype and good things about Kusmi, that when I was in New York and saw the store, I had to stop in and get some teas! I was really excited about them, especially this one.

The scent is sweet and spicy with a strong ginger scent. The black tea scent is also there, but the main note is the spice. Once brewed, the scent becomes creamy and spicy, it reminds me of the smell of oatmeal cookies before you bake them.

The flavor is less spicy than I imagined it would be. It is like you can taste the spice flavor but don’t get any of the tingly spice sensation (I hope that makes sense!). The creamy flavor is great, and it is both a flavor and a sensation. I love how the vanilla and almond are strong enough to be evident over the flavor of the spices. It is a great tea for breakfast time, it makes me smile!

As far as I can tell from other people’s reviews, most aren’t as happy with this brew as I am. I guess I am lucky to enjoy it! I would recommend it if you like vanilla almond and don’t mid that the spices aren’t super strong. :)

I am so happy to be back!

Have a backlog, since I’m not capable of tasting anything properly at the moment, the Tan Yang Te Ji (♥) of this morning being proof thereof, and also it seems like it’s been a while since I wrote a proper post that wasn’t just a ‘poor me’ kind of thing.

So here is a tea that Auggy has shared with me, and which I have tasted rather out of season, because I didn’t really feel like waiting. And I’d already done the Thirsty Elf too which was also out of season, so…

It was, according to my notes, a chilly day when I had it, though, so I thought at the time that a Christmas tea seemed appropriate.

The leaf smelled of Christmas spices and particularly of ginger. There was a funny almost soapy note in it as well, but I’m not sure that wasn’t just another aspect of the ginger. Other thoughts I had were of clove, cinnamon and cardamom, but really it was mostly ginger. It’s supposed to have orange as well, but I only found that as a whiff of an accent to the other notes.

Not super-confident about this, I sipped with caution. Gosh, ginger! And soap. Now I definitely think the soapyness is a ginger aspect. As for the other ingredients, I could only find a weak orange and the shadow of an almond in the aftertaste. That’s it. No vanilla, no spices, no nothing. Just ginger.

So not a blend for me, this.

christmas in May!
orange yay, almond yay, vanilla yay, and spices…hmmm i’m skeptical of you “spices”.
tasting…
and it’s pretty mild.
i probably need to steep it longer.
i was worried there would be cinnamon with a capital C.
instead it’s just nothin to write home about.

(This will be my attempt to write a brief(er than normal) tea log. Wish me luck!)

The set up: I’ve had a bit of an uncheerful time lately and today is no different. Fortunately, my Kusmi order showed up a day earlier than expected so I will be able to cheer myself up with tea!

The smell: The dry leaves give me marzipan with a hint of spice and a flash of soft floral and bakey. The tea smells of… tea (like some sort of Lipton-esque blend that just comes across as “tea”) with a little soft spice (thankfully not enough to make me think of potpourri) and something that reminds me of pancakes (sweet and bready).

The taste: It’s mild. I can detect rose and spice when I slurp but otherwise it’s faintly marzipan and orange with a cinnamon-like sweetness of spice at the end. But the notes all sort of blend to give a smooth, rather softly flavored, afternoon tea.

The verdict: I had hoped that this would be a little stronger on the almond and orange (as I love those flavors) but I do like the mild-ness and smooth-ness of this. I probably won’t buy this one again as it’s fairly un-wowing, but the smoothness and mild flavor is relaxing to me on this grumpy day.

Doulton’s Shakespeare: A Tasting Note in 5 Acts
Act V scene 3

“This is the short and the long of it.”
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II scene 2

This bagged tea is like a distant relative of an ancient and powerful tea that’s the embodiment of Christmas smells. It’s nice and has good qualities. It’s also another one of those that if someone gave me some I’d be delighted to have it, but I’m not going to go out and track this down for my cupboard.

This tea I dub The Merry Wives of Windsor. This play is sort of a spin-off of Henry IV Part 1 and a pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-prequel to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Both this tea and play don’t take themselves seriously. They’re nice and there’s nothing wrong with them, but they’re not the best out there. NE

Clove. Without any sweetness in the ‘spice backup ensemble’ to round it out. Just a clove solo. It’s ok, but not well rounded. Glad I got this in the sample tin, not a full size tin.

I believe it might be a better tea for after a meal, to counteract the sweetness of dessert. This is the first tea I’ve ever thought to myself…. ‘better with a biscuit’.

In fairness, I must note that all tins in the 5 pack sample kinda smelled alike. They don’t come with an inner plastic liner, just the tin- sans freshness seal—stacked in plastic tamper sealed tube. Don’t know if that matters, but I thought I should take that into account. Maybe the 4oz sealed tin would be better? or am I making excuses for a brand I love? Merry Christmas, but I’ll stick with the eminently perfect ‘Petrushka’

Doulton tucked one of these into her Shirley Temple package - I’m loving the little muslin tea bags (anybody remember Gold Rush bubble gum?) - and the “tasty and competent” rating previously posted stands. I didn’t pay close attention and let the water get too hot, boiled it instead of the 90C recommendation on the tag.

I’m getting a lot more almondy-cakey flavor than I am fruit and spices, but if I just had a piece of my mom’s fruit’n’apple cake right now, this would be a perfect match.

Amendment/addition: I tossed the back half of the mug on ice at lunchtime and tasted about twice the amount of spice. Usually it’s the other way around. Hmmm.

I was almost reluctant to try it, as I’m not a huge fan of spices in tea; had I read the previous reviews, I may have been more optimistic about it.
The smell is quite spicy, the tea looks very “normal black tea” in the small tin, with only a few orange peel pieces here and there.
The overall taste is really mellow, and honestly even weak, much milder than the smell might make it seem. Chai fans should be highly disappointed in drinking this.
The second steep already comes as very weak and light-colored and definitely requires a few new leaves to have some body, which is surprising in comparison with other Kusmi teas I’ve had, like if they had used a second (or third) grade tea base for this one.
I can taste a bit of clove remaining on my lips, but not as much as in the Spicy Chocolate. The orange flavor is to be searched for. The vanilla hasn’t been found yet.
Nicer than expected, as the spices are not as strong as I feared. I guess this small tin should be emptied in a reasonable future…
… and refilled with something else, as it’s not something I would try to get more of.

Wow. Sooo… got busy and didn’t log in for awhile, it seems. Tried last week, and the site seemed to be down. But I’m back, baybeeees!

I ran out of Prince Vladimir last week, and wanted to replace it with a biiiig tin of it. Decided to add a couple other teas to the order to make it worthwhile, and was tempted by the description of this tea. I got my order today, and immediately steeped myself a mug. Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to its description. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad tea, it just doesn’t taste all Christmasy or even orangey or almond. Maybe a vanilla-y.

So I’ll drink it, but this doesn’t taste like Christmas or Three Magis/Wisemen/Astronomers/DudesWhoWereWAYLateToTheBabyShower.

Happy Holidays!

Oh, this was very tasty! (Thank you, Doulton!) The bag smelled alarmingly of pine, but the tea itself was a wonderfully balanced mix of spices that did, in fact, remind me of Christmas food and drink. (Usually when a tea says this it just means “we have cloves!”, but this was a much more complicated blend.)

It tastes rather like Tea Forte’s Vienna Cinnamon, if my memory serves me right. The notes I get are mainly almond and cinnamon; it doesn’t taste like Christmas cake to me because the vanilla is missing! I am not a fan of spices… but this tea does remind me of Christmas so it’s perfect for my post-holiday depression. :P

I got a 2oz sample of this in the mail when I ordered some Christmas prezzies from the Kusmi website a few weeks ago. Now that it’s REALLY starting to be that time of the year (with the boyfriend’s family arriving in a few days) I decided to go ahead and give it a try.

Dry, it smells so lovely and fruity with that kick of Christmas-time spices. It’s also really beautiful, with bits of almond and what I’m assuming is orange peel.

Although once it’s steeped… it’s nice but it doesn’t pop out as a really amazing tea. It’s subtle… not nearly as spicy as it smells. You can definitely taste the fruit. It’s relatively smooth and sweet, which I find to be a given if it’s coming from Kusmi.

Um, I mean the tea is enjoyable, just not what I was expecting/am looking for.

This is a extra I got from doulton so thank you very much. This is a teabag and I can smell spices and abit of orange. I steeped this up and now smell abit of vanilla with the orange and spices. This tastes like a good black tea with orange spices and abit of vanilla and not spicy luckily to me. I think this tea is really good.

definitevely not a christmas tea. the taste is really mild, too mild…

This is a tasty and competent black tea. I’ve enjoyed other Christmas teas more and the fact is that my personal tea aesthetic wants to be overwhelmed by the spices of Christmas. Instead of just an overtone or two and a slight note, I want to have my socks knocked off by the holiday effect.

But for many drinkers, less is more and you will like this a lot. Just because I don’t do subtle does not mean this tea will not be wonderful for you.

This was a pretty decent holiday blend. I guess I was expecting a stronger taste of “holiday spice” (cinamon, nutmeg, etc), but this came across really mild to me (which I suppose is something I’ve come to expect from Kusmi). On their website the description for this tea says it “tastes like a Christmas cake”, and I think its a very apt description. This does taste like a Christmas cake (specifically it reminds me of a fruitcake). If you like the idea of a tea that tastes similar to a holiday fruitcake, then this is the tea for you. I personally found it to be a good but not outstanding blend. I may reorder this at Christmas time just for the novelty of it one year, but I don’t consider this good enough to become a holiday tradition at my home.

Smooth and seamless, but I prefer other Kusmi teas to this one.

This tea is interesting, it definitely is Christmas tea, but I am not detecting much more then spice and black tea. There is a hint of orange and maybe a little almond, but it is like previous reviewers have been saying; “subtle”. I personally LOVE that as I would rather taste more of the tea then spices and flavors, so this is a high scorer in my book, but I suppose I was a little disappointed since I love oranges and almonds, and I thought that would be more prominent.
I do recommend!

nothing incredibly impressive, but still nice.

More mild than their Prince Vladimir tea, Kusmi’s Christmas tea is dominated by orange. The other “six” spices of the tea disappear in a pleasing way. I actually enjoy this tea better than their strongly spiced Prince Vladimir (which ironically, I think, makes a better holiday tea) but would not buy again out of personal preference.