Back at work, and back to my collection of teas. This one comes to me thanks to Angrboda! I was deciding between this one and the black currant from Harney, but I decided I wanted more different kinds of berries in my cup this morning. I’m not a huge fan of strawberry or cherry flavored things on their own, but mixed up with other fruits I do enjoy them. The dry leaf on this one smells intensely of berries and those “red fruits”. The Argentinians love the “red fruits” flavor in jams and teas, and this definitely smells like some of the things I had in Argentina.
I brewed it at a lower temp like the Kusmi Caramel, which resulted in a very flavorful and very smooth cup. I’m a little too out of it from my cold to try and distinguish individual berry flavors and aromas, but suffice to say that they all meld very well together. It really is a true “red fruits” flavor… no individual fruit overwhelms the others and sticks out, and they all blend to form a fruity, berry-y, “red”, delicious taste. I was a little worried when other reviews called Kusmi teas “lightly flavored” since with blacks I prefer fairly bold flavoring (though not usually to the point that it overwhelms the tea completely), but this tea is very well flavored (perhaps because of the low steep time) and the black tea base complements the flavors well. Definitely a nice blend!
Preparation
Comments
I can’t usually identify all four in a cup either. Sometimes I think it’s mostly cherry or mostly something else, and the others are either found in the background, identified with a sort of squint, or blurred together into the umbrella-flavour of ‘fruity’. My boyfriend tends to prefer a fruity black in evenings and afternoon, so we’ve always got one. I bought a 250g tin of this one as I’d had it before and knew I liked it. It’s halfway gone already. O.o I need to quiz him on his preference on this as opposed to some of the others we’ve tried because gosh! It’s not THAT long ago I bought the tin… Anyway, that was a tangent. I’m glad you liked this one as well. :)
Yeah, thanks for sending this one! I’m impressed with the Kusmi teas I’ve had, and I’m glad they’re easily accessible to me at the Kusmi store in NYC.
I can’t usually identify all four in a cup either. Sometimes I think it’s mostly cherry or mostly something else, and the others are either found in the background, identified with a sort of squint, or blurred together into the umbrella-flavour of ‘fruity’. My boyfriend tends to prefer a fruity black in evenings and afternoon, so we’ve always got one. I bought a 250g tin of this one as I’d had it before and knew I liked it. It’s halfway gone already. O.o I need to quiz him on his preference on this as opposed to some of the others we’ve tried because gosh! It’s not THAT long ago I bought the tin… Anyway, that was a tangent. I’m glad you liked this one as well. :)
Yeah, thanks for sending this one! I’m impressed with the Kusmi teas I’ve had, and I’m glad they’re easily accessible to me at the Kusmi store in NYC.
I’ve generally had pretty good luck with Kusmi’s flavoured as well. I had a sample set of their Russian blends once and I really liked all of them, except one which was absolutely horrid.