St. Petersburg

I was a diehard fan of Prince Vladimir, that is until I tried St Petersburg! It’s lush, soft and is rather inspiring. I highly recommend this tea!!

This is one of my pretty teas.
Pretty as in: Standing in my teashelf looking handsome.

The tea itself is orange in color, smell sweet and taste like… Tea.
It’s sweet, but that’s the only “note” I caught beside the taste of a black tea.
Neutral like Sweden, I guess.

It’s actually nice to sip while I am eating cereal.
So I guess it’s good for breakfast, when you just need a little strong tea-tasting tea to keep you company.

This tea has a nice caramel smell once brewed and a light, refreshing taste.
Still not strong enough flavour to suit my taste though.

Seductive caramel and red berry notes on nose— very pretty— layered on earl grey base. Sumptious palate, though it might be a bit thin in places. Very good, overall.

1 sachet for 300mL water @ 90C steeped 4 min 30 seconds, drunk bare.

My second-last new-to-me from my Kusmi Earl Grey sampler …

I expected to dislike this one, truth told. Once we start adding berry flavour or scent to a tea, it’s either fakey-fake sweet-almond from cheap 1970s hand lotions or tear-your-tastebuds-a-new-one hibiscus. I avoid hibiscus. Sure, it adds authentic colour and tartness, but it also dominates.

So there’s no hibiscus in this one, but I do get that fake-almond thing from the berry, vanilla, and caramel flavours. The bergamot cuts into them in the finish. That finish is sweet and a bit cloying, like a cookie that’s crumbled in your mouth and you can’t quite swallow yet.

I’d serve this to someone who said they liked a “cream” Earl Grey, but I won’t go our of my way on this one for myself. That’s no comment on the quality of the tea. It’s just a subjective thing.

Sipdown (242)

Thank you for sharing this with me Cameron B! I have one more tea remaining from our swap back in 2018. I am sorry I left these last couple samples for so long. With that said, I have had this one before but I guess didn’t write a note. I think that is because the last time I broke this out, I ended up having dinner and didn’t get a chance to properly appreciate the tea. Unfortunately the same happened with this cup since dinner ended up being much earlier than anticipated. So I basically took two big mouthfuls of this to taste it, then had dinner.

I am now finishing the mug. I remember when it was hot, it actually had a lot of caramel and red fruit flavors. Bergamot too, of course, but not offensively so. Now that its cold, the red fruit flavors are coming out a lot more. Caramel and bergamot too but a lot of red fruits. As far as earl grey teas go, this one is pretty good. I enjoyed it both hot and cold, though definitely more so hot.

Overtime I realized I don’t love certain flavors made in French teas but things like caramel and vanilla and other “gourmet” flavors as Dammann Freres refers to them are usually pretty good. I also think their bergamot flavor is softer than more American bergamot flavoring which makes it more tolerable, especially when mixed with other flavors.

Thank you Cameron B. :D

Lots of reviews, and as usual, I’m very late in the game. ^^ The notes I got were bergamot, caramel, red fruits, a little vanilla, cloves on the exhale, some floral… Almost perfumey but not overwhelming. I didn’t find any chocolate notes as some mentioned nor did I find it tart at all. I got a lot of berries and sweetness. Another good Kusmi tea. :)

This is the last tea from my swap with Cameron B. It’s been lovely trying everything! When I tried this one plain, it tasted, well plain. I don’t notice any flavor other than the taste of the mild black tea. It’s nice with some milk and sugar. I don’t mind a plain-tasting black tea, it’s just not what I was expecting.

Yay, another Kusmi sample from Cameron B.! Thank you! I love Kusmi but have never really dug into their catalog.

So, I needed something powerful this morning and the dense, tiny leaves of this tea promised to pick me up. They’re nearly black and smell lovely, fruity in a way I can’t really place, but also bright with bergamot. Of course it brews up very dark and makes me question my three and a half minute steep time. That’s something Young Tabby would have never said… Adagio had taught her black teas need five minutes. Five minutes! WTF?!

Anyway, once steeped, this smells very sweet. Like dessert. The flavor reminds me of a raspberry earl grey, with notes of caramel and vanilla. Mmmm, this is lovely. Just the thing I needed today. The black tea base is smooth and malty with surprisingly little bitterness considering the way it looks. This is a real pleasure – a combination of so many flavors I love. Glad I have a little more left!

my favourite tea of the kusmi russian blends sampler so far although ive got troika to go. red currant, cherry, a bit of caramel. funny i was just thinking about the twinings four red fruit tea bags i had years ago, and it has the same currant and cherry flavours in it i remember from that one.