Sweet Love

This is by far one of my favourite Chai-Tea blends. The tea itself is delicate enough to allow a steep that lets the spices come through without a bitter finish. It doesn’t require milk or sugar to be delicious, as some chai blends do.

I would however, recommend separating the cardamom pods and pink pepper and giving them a bit of a crunch before you brew. This brings out their flavour much more than leaving them whole.

This was the first Kusmi tea I tried from my order. I was really impressed. I’d never really had a tea with licorice root before, so I wasn’t expecting that sweet aftertaste, and was pleasantly surprised when I swallowed and the sweetness lingered in my mouth. With vanilla soymilk, or even just milk to bring out the sweetness of this tea, there’s no need to add sugar. It’s dessert all on its own. I think the name, Sweet Love, fits it extremely well.

The tea itself is really beautiful was well. Colorful bits and pieces all mixed together. It’s a very festive-looking tea. The tin is beautiful. I love the little drawing on the side.

I gave this a go and (sorry to everyone who loved it) but I honestly found the flavor very odd and just not very good. The novelty of the licorice was not lost on me though. I did find it fun to take a sip, and then feel the natural “sweetness” build in the back of my mouth. That was certainly a very interesting experience. However, on the basis of pure taste alone, I did not find this blend very appealing. I could just be a victim of my own palate here though, as I’m not very partial to herbals. Make no mistake, although this blend does contain some black tea, it consists predominately of the other herbal ingredients (ginseng and liquorice roots, spices, guarana seed and pink pepper). Maybe that’s why it put me off. At the very least I can use the remaining tea from my sample canister for a quick “pick-me-up” (guarana seed has double the caffeine of a coffee bean). If someone would like to suggest some sort of alternate preparation method, I’d be happy to revisit it.

My first thoughts when sipping this was that this was a winter tea. Despite this, I think Sweet Love is perfect for Valentines day. After all, the first day of spring isn’t until late March, it’s still a little cold and grey and the evenings are still closing in at around 5.30PM. It’s all pretty miserable and glum and actually, I don’t know about you, but I’m not quite ready to unwrap myself from my hot water bottle and duvet fueled evening hibernation. It’s still too cold and dark to venture too far from these comforts and so, I can think of few other companions to keep me warm this Valentines if my Boyf doesn’t pull through with something!

For me: www.Tastethetea.co.uk

Possibly my favourite tea ! ♥ It’s a bit Christmasey, wthout the citrus flavouring though… Cardamom and liquorice are my favourite. Add peppercorn to a black tea and there you have it: my fave!
Spicy and sweet. To me it’s the most comforting tea ever. Perfect with a splash of milk. You can definitely let it brew for only 4 mins, but what’s great about Kusmi is that their tea never get sour if brewed for too long.

I tend to leave the leaves in for as long as I can for a more intense taste.

I really enjoyed this tea. Tastes a lot like chai tea but with some additional favors.
I would drink it early in the day or when you need a quick pick me up since it does have quite a bit of caffeine in it.

After having an upset stomach yesterday, it’s really nice to have this tea to turn to. It’s sweet, it’s spicy, it’s warm and it has licorice in it which can help with stomach issues. I have about 5-6 more servings of this left in the tin which gives me mixed feelings. Sadness to see it go, but happy that I am working my way through some tea. The tin is going to make a great succulent planter, so I have that to look forward to as well. Some day I’m sure I’ll restock this.

I have been putting off trying Kusmi Sweet Love because every time I found myself reaching for it, it has been late in the day, and I have concluded that the black tea first ingredient would keep me awake. Whoops—silly me.

In fact, this is more of a licorice root than a black tea. My sachet also contained, remarkably, three—count ’em 3!—cardamom pods. That was probably just luck of the draw, but it does seem a bit excessive

Despite all of that cardamom (three pods of cardamom ground might actually be toxic!), the licorice root still prevails as the dominant flavor in this blend. The black tea is more like an afterthought. I realized this when I saw how many more spices (also pink pepper) there were than leaves of black tea. The liquor is orange amber.

Anyway, Sweet Love is not bad for a spicy licorice tea, which is what this really is—against my expectations. In addition to the sample sachet, I have a small tin of the loose blend. When I make a pot, I’ll probably use a smaller ratio of cardamom to black tea.

(Blazing New Rating #73)

This tea is the first of the three free samples I got with my Kusmi Tea order (thanks for the freebies!). First, I must say that I am slightly disappointed that their sample tea bags are not the fancy linen bags that they generally package their bagged teas in. They’re that synthetic material that most pyramid tea bags are made of but they’re in a standard rectangular shape. This seems a little cheap to me, but hey, I guess that’s what you get for free. :P

Smelling the dry tea, I immediately knew that I most likely wouldn’t enjoy this blend. It smells very strongly of licorice root, of which I am not a fan. Being a good sport, I elected to try it anyway. I steeped it for 4 minutes and added a small amount of sugar.

The brew also smells strongly of licorice root, with a slightly milder scent of spice, similar to chai. I find that I barely even taste the black tea base – it’s overpowered by the licorice root immediately. There is also a fainter taste of chai spice. The two flavors do meld together well, and I’m sure that someone who enjoys licorice teas would love this one. I hardly think it fair to give this one a rating since I was bound to dislike it. :P

Again, a teaspoon of honey, for the sore throat…