AquaRosa

Kusmi has better tart fruit herbals, but I really don’t mind this one. There’s definitely plenty of hibiscus in here, but I think the balance is still decent. It’s like having fruit juice that’s less sweet. I’ve enjoyed a few large cups of this cold. I actually totally forgot about this tin from last year’s advent calendar because it fit perfectly underneath one of my other tins, but it’s still quite fresh! It’s finished now, and I wouldn’t repurchase, but it wasn’t bad.

Adventaggedon Day 6: Tea 1/7

Short tasting notes tonight because I got home from a very busy day at work and was just completely and utterly exhausted. I ordered in supper (the first chance I’d gotten to eat all day) and caught up on the most recent episode of Critical Role because I needed time to decompress before cracking out tasting notes, but now I’m just ready to quickly log some thoughts and go the fuck to sleep…

This was one of the days in the Kusmi advent where the tea wasn’t just a prewrapped sachet but was actually a small little mini tin of loose leaf. If I remember correctly, it’s the first of two days that will have the small mini tin of tea. I took advantage of the extra leaf to make a proper iced tea to sip on at work, and I still have about half the tin left over – so it was a pretty generous amount of leaf.

Unfortunately I’m just not really loving this one that much. It doesn’t taste bad but I’m struggling to really taste anything other than a very sharp hibiscus and mayyyybbeee a bit of red fruit? It’s just a little aggressively tart for me while being sort of plain? So that was a little disappointing, though the tea was still refreshing.

Last week, I decided to pamper myself a bit buying, no not this tea, but a face spray for hot days from l´occitane. The warm days have arrived in Madrid, and then a nice mist applied to your face is a wonderful treat, a habit I took up while living in the southwest of France. And the temporary present added to my order were 2 tins of Bio teas from Kusmi Tea. So, this is the first of them I open and try.
I had already tried Kusmi Tea´s 4 red fruits, which is a black tea blend I liked better than expected, but looking at the reviews of this hibiscus-based tea, I thought it wouldn´t be my type of tea either : as most of the reviewers, I´m not too fond of hibiscus-based teas. But I don´t think the hibiscus overwhelms everything else here, so once in a while it´ll be quite enjoyable, I reckon.
The smell of the dry tea seems quite natural, and when steeping, it first turns mauve then a dark fuchsia, which is nice (I drank this tea from a glass mug, so the optical side is a plus ;-) ). The hot tea is fruity and tender, and it´s very easy to drink…which I think is the secret of it´s success by the people who don´t drink that much tea. As suggested by some reviewers, I need to try this cold as well, to see whether it improves that way.

Back in 2016 I organised a pretty casual, laid-back wedding under the open sky in my family garden. We wanted to celebrate with a small crowd of our closest people. For the evening, we prepared a wide selection of drinks. Of course, for me personally, the most exciting task was choosing the tea. I went to the Kusmi store in city centre of Berlin and with the help of an extremely handsome assistant that made me blush on multiple occasions we chose 8 types of which I bought huge quantities. I disdain all fruit tisanes and wanted to completely omit this category but the gorgeous guy made me aware it’s a mistake, as people generally tend to love them. He chose this one for me. I frowned but took his advice and invested in a few boxes of AquaRosa as well. During the dances in the evening, of course I tried all teas that we chose and how big was my surprise – when I discovered that AquaRosa was the only one that we run out of! Shocking. People really don’t mind the devil called Hibiscus, as much as I do.

For me this tea is nothing but underwhelming. Heavy on the berries, quite sweet, but also sour. You can feel the apple (meh, another meh ingredient). Honestly, it doesn’t taste like much! I would never repurchase. But then, hey, given a choice of 7 lovely Kusmi teas and this funky one, somehow this one turns out to be the crowd pleaser. Well, life is full of surprises.

Kusmi Advent Day 10
Hot hibiscus fruit water. Not getting any discernible fruits. Like a fruit punch or fruit juice concentrate…but then made super tart from the hibiscus. I could do without this.

Advent Day 10

Mmmmm… hibiscus. (insert barf emoji) It’s like watered down hibiscus which is way better than full strength hibiscus. The hib really dominates this tea. It smelled really nice dry and I had hope, but I can’t taste anything past that hib.

Kusmi Advent Calendar – Day 10

Another hibiscus fruit tisane from Kusmi. This seems similar to their AquaExotica that was in the advent a few days ago, so I guess we’ll see how it compares. That one was more tropical while this seems to be berry-flavored. I let it cool completely before tasting it, as hot hibiscus is just weird…

It’s honestly a little bland? But the main flavor is definitely the hibiscus. I guess I could see raspberry as well maybe, and a hint of apple. But honestly that’s it really. Mostly hibiscus, bit of tart red fruit. It tastes watery at first and then there’s a POW of sweet-tartness at the end of the sip.

Meh, not loving it. The other one was definitely better IMO.

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIn4CAHg-sf/)

My brother in law brought this tea for me from France. He doesn’t know much about tea and asked someone there to recommend some good teas for a family member. Unfortunately neither he nor the person selecting the tea knew of my disdain for hibiscus in teas.

From the dry scent, I could tell it would be a tart, fruity tea. I prepared in advanced by mixing in some honey before I drank it. It helped a bit but that devil dog we call hibiscus still is prominent. I cannot fault a dog for being a dog. But I don’t think this tea is on any of my favorite lists.

I tried this on a train home, and since this is my first review I wanted to try a tea that’s completely new to me instead of reviewing a tea that I already know and love. I will say that I did drink it in a paper cup – please don’t judge, it’s the only thing they had – so that might explain why I didn’t like this tea very much.
The first thing I immediately tasted was the berries, which to me was the strongest flavour in this tea. Then I got the hibiscus, which I like a lot, it was almost as intense as the berries. The tea itself is very sweet in its taste (and I didn’t put any sugar in it). It reminded me of Gummibärchen, you know, those Haribo bear things? That’s the first thing it reminded me of, along with a bath with candles on a late summer night, which I think the name of the tea evokes as well.
The flavours died rapidly though, and I think it was either the apple texture (which I loathe), or just the paper cup.
AquaRosa is not a tea I’d drink for fun, but I do think it’s pretty nice if you need comfort on a long trip. I recommend it iced more than hot, as well.