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Kusmi Advent Day 1

Bright lemon with bergamot in this cup. The tea seems a little oversteeped under the fruit flavors. Two minutes may have been a better choice. I had this on a green base previously and felt like it was similar to a Theodor tea with the same flavor profile, but lacking an edge that Theodor has. The same feeling holds true to this tea. I’d like to try it with some creamer, but I’m out. :/

Day one of AJRimmer’s advent!

What a day! Woke up at 6am to take a friend in for surgery at 7:30. Steeped up a cup of this tea, had a few sips of creamy coconut and put it in my travel mug. Left it in the car at the hospital thinking I’d be back for it in a couple hours, not wanting to have to remove my mask in the hospital to sip my tea. NINE HOURS LATER of pining for my tea we find out surgery is definitely not happening today. This is the second time in a week they have canceled this surgery. My tea is lukewarm, but I’m back home decompressing. So this is how December in 2020 is going to start. Fine.

I didn’t realize it before, but the paper each tea is wrapped in is a note! This one talks about snow. It’s such a fun personal touch to the advent! Thanks, AJRimmer!

Coconut is what I notice first and foremost in this cup. I can taste some spice behind it… cinnamon? Nutmeg? It almost has a subtle sugar cookie flavor to it. This feels like such a mellow relaxing tea, which is exactly what I need right now.

This is one that has been hiding in my cupboard for a while! The leaves are those super cute fuzzy curls laced with pink flowers. There is something grainy like sugar at the bottom of this bag that didn’t make it into my steeper. Maybe it was the spice because I’m not getting any spice in this cup. It was a little bland when hot, but after walking away from it for an hour to help a friend over the phone try to figure out how to post on instagram, I’m getting a bit more flavor out of my cooled cup. The peach is really light on the sip and is accompanied with a slight dill taste. That fades in the finish where floral honey lingers.

This tea amuses me, but I don’t know that I like it. I think I’d enjoy it more if the non existent salsa part were replaced with something else. Could be that the salsa part was way more exciting when this tea was new. :/

Super close to a sip down on this one which is exciting considering how massively packed my cupboard is at the moment. Took a few sips and could taste the mac and chocolate, but it was missing something. Added some silk soy creamer and it kinda took over the cup. The chocolate is more vague in the sip, but the mac comes out creamy and sweet in the finish. I’ve bought this a couple of times and only written a tasting note for this once, so I’m not sure what the age is on this tea, but I’m going to overleaf my next cup for sure.

I am SO excited to have this back in my cupboard and may have made a mistake drinking it too late in the day. I am BUZZING with caffeine right now and need to go eat something… anything, after this post. I’ll curse Fed-ex tonight when I’m tossing and turning in bed for having delivered it later in the day and not my lack of will power combined with excitement overpowering my better judgement. This cup is SO good. <3

Sample of this came with my advent order. It definitely smells mango flavored. Mango flavoring never tastes like fresh mango IMO. What surprises me about this tea is how well they do the mango flavor. I feel like a lot of other mango teas I’ve had have an alkaline flatness to them that is really distracting, something this tea I’m pleasantly surprised to notice does not! I like this for a mango tea, but I feel like it needs something else to compliment it. Like how cinnamon often goes with apple. I’m guessing a little sugar might round out the flavor, but I’m not accustom to adding sugar to my teas anymore. I like this, but I wouldn’t say at this point it is a tea I’d need to buy.

Edit: I’m enjoying it more while eating dried coconut chunks. Maybe that’s what I want it to have!

My struggle to find the perfect non dairy creamer is real. With the addition of Trader Joe’s coconut almond creamer, my cup of Fireside Mocha was transformed into a cup of pizza crust tea. It was the weirdest thing, clearly tasting pizza crust. I’m not even that big of a fan of pizza. I’ll eat it if I’m starving and it’s there, but I never think “What do I want for dinner tonight… I know, pizza!”. I have no idea what about the combination would do this, but I was sipping it while watching the movie Satanic Panic, which was not a documentary on the 80’s fear phenomenon like I thought and logic leads me to suspect that this tea transformation might be the work of the devil. Who else would play such a rotten trick?! Definitely satan. Cue panic!

Is grape a winter season flavor in Japan like peppermint and eggnog are in the states? This is the second Lupicia winter tea I’ve tried that is centered around grape. I steeped this one at a much lower temp than Jingle Bells and I got a lighter flavor as a result, but the flavor is really quite similar. The base is different, but the grape is so strong that it’s hard to taste much beyond that. I might be getting a little grassiness in the finish, hard to say for sure. I love Lupicia, but I do wish they would get more creative and diverse with their flavors. Instead it seems like they diversify the base or add a few decorative bits into the blend with the same flavor profile and call it a new tea. This is a good cup, but not something I’d run out and buy.

I haven’t been feeling well for the past few days which may explain why I read “singapore breakfast”, thought “singapore earl grey” and was confused as to why I wasn’t tasting bergamot. It has a light orange peel flavor to it. Lots of low notes make this a pretty mellow cup. I think I can taste hints of pandan, but they are subtle. The tea leaves my mouth feeling a little dry. There is a French tea that tastes very similar to this. Melange by Hediard maybe?
This blend is falling into the same category as many of the other Ette blends I’ve been trying which is that I feel like there is something more to this tea that I’m not getting. Going to be playing around with the steeping parameters for sure.

Did a light and short steep on this. When it is really hot the genmaicha is what comes through. As it cools I get the pandan flavor lingering in the finish and the tiniest bit of heat. There was a little piece of chili that made it into my steeping basket, but it doesn’t seem to have made it’s presence known in the cup. It has a nice light roasty flavor to it. Not sure which ingredient that is from. So far I’m feeling like it is an alright cup, but not something I’d repurchase.