Kusmi Tea

I miss this one.

I didn’t really know what to expect from this tea—firstly because I’ve never had rose in a tea and secondly because when dry, it had a strong, perfumey smell that was a bit reminiscent of pot purri or even a rose perfume. Well, it’s not great in my books. I’ve not found it truly disappointing or poor quality or anything, but it just has a kind of dull, herby, very faintly peppery kind of taste. It also gets kind of bitter if you steep it for a while, so watch out for that. This tea needs sweetener and is so far the only Kusmi tea that as early as the second steeping has lost significant flavour (in comparison, I drank the spearmint green tea yesterday and got three or four steepings out of it, witht the cool, clean flavour still clearly perceptible throughout). I don’t think the downfall of this tea is its demure quality, because that is also a characteristic of the strawberry green tea by Kusmi, and I thought that was a pretty great tea. I think the problem with this tea is perhaps that the rose flavour, while certainly notable, is not necessarily a good match for the green tea (it may be this type of green tea [a lighter, sweeter, grassier one could work better], but I’m not sure there). This tea is pleasant, but I don’t think it’s very memorable.

If rose is a “thing” for you, maybe you should give this a try, but if you pick it up and think, like I did, that that lavish, rich eastern quality of rose’s fragrance as in rosewater or rose sweets will be well reflected in the tea, I don’t think this will be what you’re looking for. Rose might be a better match for a lighter green tea (potentially with jasmine), or a white tea. A rose fragrance that’s as strong as the dry scent indicates this one is could be really good on its own, too. This tea is basically a good concept executed somewhat unsuccessfully. Overall, I’d mostly recommend this to someone looking for an appropriately flavoured green tea of decent quality to pair with a Lebanese meal. It might also be more interesting mixed with chai or a floral tea of a different variety. There’s a difference when it’s cool, so it could make a nice iced drink with more sweetener or a little something added. It would also probably go quite well with milk.

This is probably the only mint tea I’ve ever had that’s had any of the freshness you’d expect from a product containing mint. The spearmint must make all the difference here, and instead of that usual weedy, bitter, dull flavour, there’s a fresh, clean mint taste with a backdrop of grassy, non-bitter green tea. The mint flavour is a very pure one, a “straight from the leaf” taste. I’m taken aback by some of the average reviews Kusmi has had. I’ve found the brand pretty reliably good so far, and that’s relying on the tea bag set I got, so the quality I’m tasting probably isn’t even the best they have to offer. Surprisingly (given that in Be Cool it’s peppermint and here it’s spearmint) the mint flavor is kind of reminiscent of that in Be Cool, but the green tea makes it less in-your-face minty. Since I’ve found a number of minty teas average at best in the past, I’m shocked that I’ve found this one so well carried out. If you’ve disliked mint teas in the past, I’d recommend sampling this one. It has the downside of not being caffeine free like pure mint teas are, but I’ve found the combination of the mint and green here really works.

This tea’s flavour was really set off with just a little sweetener, but I had the first two cups of it with none, and that worked, too. I also tried it iced, and that surprisingly clean, refreshing flavour it has is much more conducive to serving cold than the usual (and frankly off putting) taste of mint teas. It was very refreshing. It wold go especially well with some fresh mint and lemon or lime juice/zest. Vodka could also work if it’s that kind of moment for you. Like all of the Kusmi products I’ve used, I’ve successfully re-steeped this. I don’t know how well it’d work if you were more anal about the correct steeping time than I am (and by “more anal,” I pretty much mean at all concerned about taking the tea bags out before it cools), you might not have as much luck getting this much flavour out again.

Overall, I don’t really know why some people have had negative things to say about Kusmi. Maybe it’s because it’s more of a “trendy,” image-conscious kind of brand than others, and tea purists might frown on the flavours. It may also be expensive compared to what one would pay for other brands (honestly, I don’t think much about this. If it looks/smells/sounds good, I’ll buy it), but to me, it’s a tolerable 75 euro cents per cup (at the more expensive rate that comes with using bags) and I haven’t been truly disappointed by a single flavour yet. I’m no tea expert, but to me, that’s a win. Admittedly, I might change my mind when I’ve tried some more premium-type teas, since I’ve mostly used supermarket brands up until now, but I’m pretty satisfied.

I’m really surprised that so far only one person has mentioned the vanilla note in this. To me, it’s undeniable—so much so that when I first tasted it, my immediate thought was of a vanilla green tea made by Lipton that I used to drink sometimes. If anything, I’d call this a strawberry-vanilla green, but I would understand if someone thought that there was no strawberry at all and just a general fruity kind of lightness that’s a bit nondescript. It’s identifiable as strawberry if you know it’s a strawberry green tea, but otherwise, I think it may not be. Before you steep it, though, it’s very strawberry indeed. It smells exactly like strawberry candy or a strawberry lip balm. Upon steeping, that’s pretty much gone. You’ve got some light, fruity sweetness (this was brought out in mine with sweetener, but this is one of a small number of flavoured green teas I’ve tried that I’d say you could be satisfied with unsweetened), but to me, the vanilla note is what’s predominantly there with the green, which is a pretty subtle green. The strawberry taste does come out more when the tea is cool, though, so if you’re having this at room temperature, it may come across as more true to name.

Because vanilla’s pretty much my favourite thing ever, I didn’t have a problem with the fact that this wasn’t strongly berry-flavoured. Someone commented that the flavour may reflect that Kusmi’s claims of using natural flavours may be dubious, but if anything, I’d say that the kind of weak berry aspect could be a reflection of strong-tasting, artificial sweeteners not being used (I have to say, though, the smell before steeping does make it seem a bit fake [but the smell is here no indicator of the flavour]). I thought it was a pleasant tea, but it didn’t really feel original (though that means that it could be a crowd pleaser if you’re having a tea party or something [depending on the attendees, obviously—I wouldn’t serve it to my parents]). I’d probably buy it again, and it might have other uses (I used to blend up the Lipton vanilla tea with fruit and some other things for a smoothie, and that would work well with this, especially if you’re someone who wants something new to do with your tea).

Favorite tea. Drink everyday.

I’ve tried a few different lemon and ginger-type teas, and they have had the advantage of being caffeine free, but this one’s flavour is the best, for sure. I had it sweetened and it has a pleasant grassy kind of taste with just a hint of lemon and some slightly stronger gingery notes over that. Ideally, the lemon and ginger would be stronger (particularly the lemon, which is kind of a ghost here), but this way, you can appreciate the taste of the tea leaves, so fair enough. You could also just add some of your own fresh lemon and ginger too, or mix it with another tea that has stronger ginger and lemon elements I guess. I may have been expecting the flavour to be a bit different because similar teas I’ve had in the past have had ginger and lemon as the only thing going on. As it is, it has a very pleasant aftertaste of a lemon and ginger candy or something similar. Something that was really nice about this tea is that I’ve had problems in the past with what I feel is a kind of staleness or overly dry, bland kind of taste to ginger in tea. Maybe the green tea adds some freshness to the flavour that prevents this. I was pretty glad that this tea didn’t have that aspect! To me, the main drawback to it is its lack of lemon, which is disappointing because lemon goes so well with green tea. You get a tiny suggestion of lemon at the end of a sip, but otherwise, it basically tastes more like a ginger green tea to me, though a well orchestrated one that I’d probably buy again.

This tea has a really soothing, subtle feel to it. “Peaceful” would be a good description of the vibe of this tea (the vibe, but not the effect—it could just be the fact that even a single cup of tea will really wake me up, but I had two or three cups of this today and even though the taste was peaceful, it certainly didn’t have a calming effect! Don’t drink it at night!) A word of warning: I always over-steep stuff, and this tea wasn’t as forgiving as many other teas are. Its flavour was still great, but there was a bit of a noticeable bitterness that may have been prevented had I watched the steeping time.

This is a sipdown for me, I only bought a sample size of it a while back with the “afternoons” set from Kusmi, I believe.

A very light and floral genmaicha. I definitely would not buy the large size of this as I actually prefer the cheap genmaicha I can get in Japantown. Still I’m glad I had the chance to try this.

Tea of the evening here, the last one to try in my Kusmi “afternoon” tea sampler set.

I normally quite like genmaicha, but as a few other people remarked this is a very light version and I’m used to the ones made by Japanese tea companies that are quite nutty and brothy. This is rather genteel with a sweetness and a slight floral note. Odd, I thought all genmaichas were mostly the same but perhaps the difference is the green tea they are using in this blend. I think I prefer the more traditional kind, but this is pretty nice overall and made for an interesting surprise. They claim this is delicious iced, so I may need to try that.

I never seem to be blown away by any of the Kusmi teas but the tins are just so darn cute…

So my latest Kusmi order showed up today. So far, this is my new favorite brand of daily drinkable tea. I like that they don’t try to turn the tea into candy. I have always liked the idea of Apple tea, but it’s one of those things, I keep searching for one that lives up to my idealization of an actual apple flavor. Not Jolly rancher apple candy. Not air freshener. So, this is why I decided to go ahead and trust Kusmi with the dreaded Apple quest. The last apple tea I ordered (whittard) got tossed out. Pieces of apple bits for my eye to see did not trick my tastebuds.

This is Kusmi, and they do their flavor with subtlety. I love that about them. So. Today’s order of 3 more tins, and after aquiring enough Kusmi tins to supply a small restaurant… I now own Apple as well. It is the first one I brew today. And I am pleased. This is tea first, with apple second, and it isn’t sour, it doesn’t hit you over the head. It doesn’t contain little bits of apple. It has more of the flavor of biting into an apple. I get that certain quality in the apple peel… I am looking for the word… the mustiness ? that a fruit skin naturally has. It looks like I have found an apple I can drink. I will use this tin up!

I wasn’t really thinking about the notes of the tea when I first drank it, which was probably not advantageous to part of this review, but for me, the tea is predominantly mint. I don’t really like mint tea that much, but this is definitely the best mint (“mint themed”?) tea I’ve had yet. If you like mint, I’d go for it! I drank it hot, but it could be better cold. Don’t worry if you over-steep it. I did and I don’t think it affected it for the worse. Quite fresh-tasting! I drank it with sweetener, and I probably wouldn’t recommend it without that.

I tried this cold and I think it must have a little menthol in it, because when you drink it even at the temperature of a cool room, it is very, very cooling. It has a freshness that I’ve found absent from most mint teas (with the exception of Kusmi’s Spearmint Green), which thankfully takes the place of that horrible, weedy kind of taste that mint tea always seems to have. It also leaves a clean taste in your mouth, unlike those weedy ones. I can’t really pick up any other elements besides mint, except for a touch of peripheral herbal flavour that gives it a very, very slight soapy, bitter element—only able to be tasted if you are really looking for those other notes. Besides that aspect, it’s mostly a fairly well-executed mint, but mint tea just leaves me cold (pretty much literally in this case.) I think this would be really good with some lemon or lime juice and zest (along with the sweetener), and for my next sample of it, that’s what I’ll be adding (most likely to a cold cup.)

This was the first genmaicha I’d ever had. It’s an unusual kind of tea taste for me, and I knew it would be. It’s got roasty, green thing going on and it tastes a lot like the flavour of those bits of rice that get charred onto the bottom of a pot of rice if you cook it for too long, with an aftertaste that tastes almost exactly like marijuana. It’s very rice-y, like the taste in your mouth after eating those round rice crackers, but that’s definitely balanced with the green aspect. It’s not at all bitter, even though I left the bag in for several minutes (I know that’s not what’s recommended, but I pretty much needed the caffeine because it’s assignment time, and also, I wanted to really test the flavour). It’s quite comforting, and though I wouldn’t definitely buy a full canister of it, I wouldn’t discount it as a good option for a “sometimes” tea. I drank it unsweetened and couldn’t imagine it any other way. I think it’d probably taste like cereal or something then.

Update: I tried this slightly sweetened. It brought out the rice flavour in a way, but it was just kind of a bit cloying since the tea already has that slight sweetness to begin with. I’d recommend either going very easy on the sweetener, or going without it. I won’t change the rating, because the tea’s flavour was just as good as last time, which is quite good!

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!

This is a sample tin from the Kusmi afternoons set I got ages ago. I don’t know how fresh this tea is any more but I still like it. If I can’t manage to finish it off in the next few months I might just need to ditch it. Part of the appeal of a rose tea is the aroma, I think. This is incredibly nice when you stick your nose in the cup, but rose teas are just not my favorites somehow, which is why this one has been lingering around. My tea log is about to get incredibly boring as I am off to my parent’s house soon and the tea that they do drink comes from Trader Joe’s (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Tea of the afternoon/early evening here. The dry leaf smells like a flower garden and is very relaxing.

This got steeped for 3 minutes in the Bee House teapot. The tea itself is lightly rosey but it isn’t too strong in my opinion. It has a nice vegetal quality, mixed with the flowery sweetness of the rose. I think I prefer a rose congou when it comes to rose scented teas, but this is pretty nice for a quiet moment. might be nice iced, as well.

This is another tea that came in my little set of 1 oz. Kusmi tins…

yeah it’s a gunpowder tea which I thought was kind of amusing. I have to wonder why they choose this particular tea. I’m definitely getting the fruity element here as well as the caramel and a bit of orange. It’s a really nice afternoon tea, I can’t say I am blown away by it, but it’s tasty. I wonder what this would be like iced?

TGIF!!

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.

I was craving a lemongrass blend this morning and I still have plenty of this in my cupboard. Not only do I have a box of the muslin bags, I even have a small tin of it that I got with the wellness collection by Kusmi.

I like this blend, but I think I would like it a little bit better without the yerba mate, which gives it a slightly bitter after taste. Also mate gets me kind of wired! I happen to like lemongrass a lot, and a couple drops of stevia made this sweeter. Still, I don’t think I will replenish this once the current supply runs out. At the rate I am going, it will go stale before I run out of it anyway!

I need some pep in my step, because I have to finish a paper and I have a grammar mid term this evening. I’ll have to stop goofing around on Steepster for now. Wish me luck!

I got this tea recently at the BiRite supermarket in San Francisco along with my other 1 oz. Kusmi samples. This particular tea I got in the muslin teabags… unfortunately they don’t have large sizes of tea at their store.

So I wonder what this is supposed to detox exactly? There’s green tea, lemongrass and mate in here. I actually think this blend is kind of refreshing, yeah it is pretty strong so you’d have to like lemon. Since I do, I am enjoying a nice big mug of it.

Finally a sipdown… this is one of my favorites from Kusmi but I don’t seem to drink the large tins very quickly. I got this over 3 years ago and am just finishing it! It is more reminiscent of chai than chocolate and the clove note is pretty strong, I do like this as a breakfast tea sometimes and it’s also good as an afternoon tea with soymilk. It’s good to be finishing something off at least, to make room for the new stuff! My life is a revolving door of tea! I don’t think I will buy more of this any time soon.

Ugh, I am not getting off to a great day because I spilled a bunch of the Marie Antoniette blend all over my tea cupboard when I was reaching for this. The upside was, upon cleaning things out I decided to toss 2 teas that are really old and I don’t think I will get around to ever drinking.

So I do like this blend and I’m getting to the bottom of the tin soon, which makes me kind of sad! I don’t order much from Kusmi as I think a lot of their teas are simply overpriced and I haven’t found a local source to get this one yet. It’s a nice chocolatey/chai kind of blend but I’m sure I can live without it at any rate… tasty on this chilly morning.

Tea of the afternoon here. I am not having a stellar day. I went to occupational therapy this morning for my hands/wrist which was good, but then my arm and shoulder have been really bothering me today. I’m so sick of dealing with this chronic pain and my Dr. is taking me off work restrictions next month so I’m going to have to try and find a job when I’m feeling poopy. It seems kind of impossible.

This tea is an old favorite and definitely my favorite tea from Kusmi. The chocolate and spicy notes seem very soothing and delicious right now. I don’t have any chais that I really love at the moment, but this is almost as good. It’s nice to have an old tea “friend” to cheer me up.

Backlog – this was my tea of the morning which unfortunately was at 4 am — ugh! Yes I woke up that early and could not fall back asleep. I think Sudafed is doing wonders for my allergies but not my sleep pattern. Pretty soon I’ll be like my Dad and just get up at 5 every day…

Anyway this is probably the only tea by Kusmi that I really like and would bother to drink on a regular basis. It’s more spicy than chocolate but still tastes pretty nice on a chilly November morning.

I guess I have to raise the rating on this one since I now have a 4 oz. tin of it. Definitely my favorite tea from kusmi and a good chocolate tea overall. This is nice with soymilk. The spices are chai like but soothing & not too strong.

Tea of the early afternoon. I actually like this one fairly well and would consider buying a tin of it the next time Kusmi has a free shipping promotion.

I am feeling under the weather today so I might have to stay at home and watch the “Little Dorritt” miniseries I got from the library. Oh well, life can’t always be exciting can it??