Kashmir Rose

Tea of the morning here and a sipdown…

I have really enjoyed this tea. I love cardamom and the rose is also really nice in this blend because it’s subtle and not “in your face” perfume-y or girly. This is great with a splash of soymilk. Might need more of this…. it isn’t that easy to find a cardamom tea.

Just upped the rating on this after discovering adding sugar makes it so tasty! Excellent way to start the cold morning.

This has been one of my favorite teas in my stash since I first found it (I think that was in the middle or late-middle of last year). I could review this without having just had a pot of it, but I just had a pot and wanted to log this before making another pot.

I brew it in my pot with with boiling water for 5 minutes. Of course, as time goes on (it takes an hour to 3 or even 4 hours for me to drink a pot because I enjoy it slowly), the flavor changes. At first, the rose and the cardamom stand out separately, and the tea has a kind of kick, like it has black pepper in it (it apparently doesn’t). The flavors do tend to blend after a while, and it keeps the kick. After blending, it tastes spicily floral with a nice kick (it keeps the kick all the way through). I like it the whole way through, but YMMV. It isn’t what I’d call sweet, by the way.

I’ll get off now and have another pot. I sometimes like to listen to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” while drinking it. Heh. That’s fun.

Very nice blend. Two of my favorite scents and flavors. I really like this one

A nice enough tea! I have so many rose flavoured black teas to (for better or worse) compare this one against and I have to say that I found it somewhere middle of the pack. The black base was very smooth with a little bit less body than some of the others that I own, but was still far from feeling thin or flat. The rose notes were also a bit more gentle than others I own, but I kind of liked how soft they were. I think it worked with the base.

Let me just start this review by saying I normally like rose and cardamom-flavored things; the container of rose-cardamom ice cream in my freezer is testament to that.

That said, this was awful. The first thing I often do with a new tea is open it up and take a whiff of the dry leaf; I instantly regretted it as this smelled powerfully, overwhelmingly like floor cleaner. I actually grimaced a little. To be fair I’ve had a lot of teas with a strong scent in the pouch that turned out to be more subtly-flavored, so I decided to brew a cup, add some sugar, and try it out.

Big mistake.

It tasted just like it smelled, but now it was sugary floor cleaner. One of the listed ingredients is cardamom flavoring, and there’s far too much of it. I hardly get any of the rose for all the cardamom, and it goes beyond making the tea spicy and on to simply unpleasant. Maybe if it had cardamom seeds or pods instead of flavoring it would be better-balanced, but as it is, it’s a no-go for me.

Sipdown no. 42 of 2016 (no. 253 total).

Not the most elegant exit for this tea. I made it, then didn’t have time to drink it before I had to run off to no. 1’s baseball game (he pitched two innings and gave up 0 runs!). I drank it upon my return. It’s better hot, but was ok cold. The spice note came out more strongly in the cold.

Not my favorite among the S&V well done florals. Unlikely to buy it again, but I wouldn’t refuse it if someone wanted to serve it to me.

Wow! This tea!!! I like this tea just a whole lot. I also love that the samples from Simpson & Vail are HUGE so I have enough to have it several times. It tastes almost like an Earl Grey chai thingie. Rose and cardamom, my very favorite spice. This is really smooth, not bitter at all. It is even good cold as I got on a phone call and forgot to take it to go and left. When I came home, it was cold and still very very delicious. The rose isn’t obnoxious – this is just really nice tea and I will likely keep this one stocked. As I tried to add the flavor notes from drop down below – I was interested to see that cannabis is a choice and cardamom isn’t which made me LOL.

I received a sample of this from Marcel Duchamp! After falling in love with a green chai with the name Kashmiri, the similar name of this tea is intriguing.

I’m smelling rose and cardamon when the tea is steeped. Wow, rose and cardamon go really well together! I used to work next door to this shop that sold a specific type of middle eastern food (the exact country is escaping my memory) and they would have desserts that I would get regularly. Most had rosewater in them, but one ice cream was rose and cardamon, which is why this tea is bringing back that memories.

The tea is really smooth and I’m not getting any bitterness. I’m finding I like it just as much with as without sugar. The cardamon is strong, but not overpowering which is a really impressive balance. The rose merges so well with the cardamon that it is hard to pick out on it’s own at times. The tea looses it’s smooth edge just slightly once the cup has cooled. I really like it, but I haven’t decided if it is a must have or not. Maybe I’ll know in a few more cups.