Strawberry Green Tea

This is my other Kusmi purchase from yesterday. The caramel being the first one, in case anybody hadn’t noticed. JacquelineM voiced the optimistic hope that the appearance of the Kusmi caramel post meant that the missing package had shown up, but alas. I have, however, found a place where they have a large selection so I went in and bought the bare necessity (caramel) and a curiousity (this one).

I’ve actually seen this one a long time ago when I was looking for a strawberry tea. The problem then was that what I wanted was a plain strawberry black and as I had never had a strawberry green before I had the hardest time imagening that. And even so, you can’t really make that substitution between blacks and greens. Two entirely different beasts.

But then Jillian shared a strawberry green with me from … uh … I can’t actually remember where it was from now, but I found it surprisingly pleasant and it brought me back to the thought of this one and finally made me want to try it.

The green base is a chinese sencha which seems to be a more or less standard green for flavouring. It seems like that’s the one most flavoured greens (that actually reveal the base) are based on. I can’t say I have any complaints there. I’ve come to the conclusion that sencha is my preferred green. I haven’t met my perfect plain sencha yet, but we’ll get to that later.

This one has a very strong strawberry aroma. It doesn’t smell synthetic when you open the tin, it smells very real. It’s got that specific sort of tang to the aroma that you also find when you smell a real strawberry and that little bit of astringency when eating one. (That slight astringency manages to surprise me every single time I have fresh strawberries for some reason)

Some of you will perhaps recall a small discussion we had once regarding the flavouring of brands such as Kusmi or Mariage Freres, and how it seemed like they were generally more subtle in their flavouring compared to similarly flavoured brands. We decided it must be a french thing. Do you remember?

The aroma of these leaves, when dry, do NOT have that frenchness. It’s 100% strawberry and a lot of it.

After steeping the aroma turns a little more complex. I can actually smell the sencha now, and the strawberry is more subdued. It’s still there, but it doesn’t scream ’I’M A STRAWBERRY!!!’ quite so much as it did before. It smells more like sweeties now than actual fruit.

Curious taste! There’s a small disclaimer here in that I didn’t really pay attention while steeping so I actually gave it a whole minute rather than just the 30 seconds I usually start a green on. For those who wonder how I can get anything interesting out of such short intervals, I use a lot of leaf.

Anyway, curious. There are strong sencha flavours here. I can find the spinach-y green note and it does indeed come with that same dark pine green colour association that I’m used to from sencha. I wonder if I might not actually rather like this sencha if I had it plain.

But what about the strawberry? It’s there. It has just regained that frenchness I mentioned before. It’s not overwhelming in the taste, but it’s very easy to find. This doesn’t just taste like sweeties or ‘strawberry tea’. It tastes like tea WITH strawberry, and therein lies an enormous difference.

Imagine the flavour of sencha. Imagine it as a sort of networked structure. A large flat expanse of pine green flavour, but with holes and cavities all over. That’s where the strawberry is. At first glance it’ll look nice and uniform, but when you look closer, there are bright red dots all over the place. That’s what it tastes like.

I’m not sure, however, that this is my perfect strawberry flavoured tea. I think it might be my perfect strawberry green tea, but all in all, I don’t really think my perfect strawberry tea isn’t black. I really wish Kusmi would provide me with a plain strawberry black.

These days I’m trying to put some thought into my ‘standard panel’ of teas. The ones that I’ll always have in my cupboard. A C Perch’s Lapsang Souchon and their raspberry oolong, for example. Kusmi’s caramel, Nothing But Tea’s orange pu-erh, TeaSpring’s Tan Yang Te Ji (♥)… And so on and so forth. In spite of the above, this one might be a candidate there as well, but I haven’t decided on that yet.

It’s been FOREVER since I have had a tea from Kusmi! I’m excited! I think there has only been 1 tea from them I didn’t care for. This is another one I had to take from the Traveling Tea Box at the last minute! Sorry guys!

It smells like creamy strawberries…almost like a smoothie of sorts!

It’s not tart but it’s slightly sweet. The Green tea has a smoother taste and the strawberry isn’t overpowering and it doesn’t stomp on the green tea base all that much. This is a goodie!

Song pair: Stardust Woman – Fleetwood Mac

took this from the traveling tea box because it smelled so totally rad.
and then i brewed it and it got cold and stuff. so now i am drinking it with some hot water added. and it’s nice and i like it’s fake strawberriness and i know i haven’t been around much but i am much too immersed in fanfic and dancing in my room to log tea. for seriously. plus i’m trying to drink down the large amounts of Tardis and Jane Austen Mafia teas i have when i’m not trying the 100 samples of tea i have. so i try to drink at least one or two samples a day but the Tardis and JAM teas the other times. and then i go to my Marathon Training Team runs and stop by the farmers market for leeks and eggplants and goat cheese (cuz i’ll go vegan again next week i swear) and those 200 Avengers fanfics that i sent to my kindle aren’t gonna read themselves!

this song is completely ridiculous, but i walk home to it from work every single fucking day (pardon my french Steve Rogers)
What She Came For (Lee Mortimer Dub) by Franz Ferdinand
http://grooveshark.com/s/What+She+Came+For+Lee+Mortimer+Dub/54znS3?src=5

This one is just as fiddly and delicate as Kusmi’s almond green, but worth it in the end I think! The dry leaves smell very sweet, and the scent sticks around once brewed, though it’s much lighter. It’s clear the leaves have simply been infused with the strawberry scent, as there are no visible bits of strawberry in the dry leaf. I would have liked some in there for sure, as it is this brews up with way more of a green tea with a whiff of strawberry than what I think of when I hear the phrase “strawberry green tea.”

I will say this is one of the few greens I’ve had good luck resteeping. In fact, my usual method with this tea is to brew and then strain into a bigger cup to catch the little leafy bits, then resteep and strain into the same cup. The lighter second steep cuts any astringency that might have snuck into the first.

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).

Strawberry/Fruity green tea is my favourite. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf makes my all time favourite (previously reviewed) but they no longer ship to Canada. At all. I couldn’t even ship some to my sister in laws in the States as i needed to order with an American credit card…

Anyway, i read the hype about Kusmi and decided that this tea was the best alternative and i NEEDED it.

I wanted to love this tea so much but to me it tastes like kitchen spices… As if someone accidentally added basil…or its been sitting in a spice cupboard beside curry powder. I’m on cup three…but it just isnt my thing.

Maybe i’m not refined enough :) i like my big American sized tea bags with lots of flavouring and perfume…ha!

I have a thing for strawberry teas. I am sure I have a bunch of past reviews on teas with this flavoring.

This tea seemed promising for me, green tea + summery berry sweetness. I got this to strictly make iced tea with. The green tea base was just ok. It’s Chinese green, and it’s very mellow. The green tea base with the strawberry flavoring was strange to me. Maybe since I am more used to berries with black tea, that’s why? I will have no problem drinking this down, but I don’t think I would buy again.

Boy, do I love Kusmi’s strawberry flavour! Tastes just like eating a real strawberry (with a hint of sugar). There’s a tartness to this one, as you’ll find with some strawberries, but I like it. I’ll have to consider picking up a bit of this while I’m in Quebec.

I ran into the Kusmi New York store the other day maybe ten minutes before they closed. I was desperately trying to smell everything and decide if it was a must buy while the sales girl tried to hide her itching to go home. I picked up this tea and one other, but I was surprised that I wasn’t taken by more teas.

I’m having this one without sweetener and it has a bitter edge to it, a tang that gets the sides of my tongue and mingles with the green taste of the tea. There is also a very distinct strawberry scent that carries over into the taste. I may have over leafed this (a recent trend for me) and will have to adjust things in the future to find the perfect cup.

Good day Steepster!
This tea came in a swap from Cameron B. and I’m just getting around to trying it now.

Unfortunately I think I underleafed this one a bit, or rather I was overly optimistic with my water. I’m not getting a whole lot of strawberry flavor but it does seem somewhat citrusy and tart. Overall not impressed but it could be partially a user error – ha ha.

Anyway I won’t rate this one for now. Thanks again Cameron! It’s always fun trying new things.