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I’m not a big green tea drinker, but I am a sucker for gunpowder green tea + spearmint. Something about the combination of that “vegetable green” taste and mint just soothes me. The low stimulant factor makes it a great nighttime tea too. For two years I purchased Moroccan Mint from Teavana to satisfy my gunpowder green + spearmint cravings. Kusmi included a sample of this in one of my orders and one taste had me hooked. I tossed out the Teavana blend in favor of this and never looked back!

This is a decent Chai, just not outstanding. It has the signature “smoothness” of a Kusmi tea and that could be one reason I can’t rate this one higher. That smooth lack of tannin I love so much in other Kusmi teas does not seem to serve this one well. I like my Chai’s bond, sassy and full of flavor. This one was just a bit too subdued for my tastes (it almost seemed bland by comparison to other Chai’s I’ve had). If a smooth and mild Chai is your thing though, this is the tea for you!

This one I have to ride the fence on. I’m still not sure if I really like it or not! The first time I brewed a pot I was really put off by the sheer strength of the “citrus” smell. I put the word “citrus” in quotes because the smell is clearly “citrus” in nature, but not one of the citrus essences used in the tea (bergamot, lemon, lime and orange blossom) really stands out above the rest. Instead I was left with with an aroma is so complex, it wound up reminding me of some sort of cheap citrus-based furniture polish or floor cleaner (harsh, but true). Normally teas using some form of citrus as flavoring are my favorite, so I had high hopes for this one and maybe that was its undoing. What saved this from being a total disaster for me was I wound up getting a pretty nasty cold the week after this arrived. Being a hardcore tea-drinker I like to whip up a black tea with honey and lemon when I get the sniffles. Since this one already had MAJOR citrus content anyway, and I did not want it to go to waste I just brewed up a pot and added some honey + milk. It wound up doing such a good job soothing me when was ill it has now become a staple at my house for when allergies and viruses attack!!! So I hate to say this is a great “sick-time” tea, but for me that’s exactly what it has become. So if you’re sick or just a huge fan of strong (yet unidentifiable) citrus flavors in your tea, give this one a shot.

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.

As my other tasting notes indicate, I’m a big fan of Kusmi teas. Given that this is listed on their site as one of their most popular teas of course I was obligated to give it a go. I can honestly say I’ve never experienced a tea quite like Prince Vladimir. From the initial aroma to the final brew, it is a decidedly unique tea. In fact, the first time I opened the canister in the presence of one of my friends and he had a whiff, he asked me if the contents were legal!!! Like most Kusmi teas, the final brew is very smooth with virtually no bitterness and the spices are easily discernible on the palate with or without adding sugar or milk. In my opinion it is the unique nature of this tea that is its most endearing quality (as opposed to the taste alone, which is still quite good). Its always fun keep some on-hand to expose my “non-hot-tea drinking friends” to “something different”. This is just a fun tea, period.

I just wanted my first act as a Steepster member to rate this excellent tea. We have a small tea room in the city where I live. The proprietress over-ordered on this one month and (amazingly) was kind enough to give me a free tin (she knows how I love to try new teas). I’ll admit my first brewing left me less than impressed. I felt the flavor was a bit artificial, yet I found myself coming back to this tea over and over again. I finally hit on what it was I liked so much. The SMOOTHNESS of this tea. I found myself trying at one point to over-steep it to bring out the tannins and make it bitter, yet the flavor remained smooth and consistent (to my palate at least). After going through several other black tea blends by Kusmi Teas I’ve found this to be a consistent quality with most of their blacks. Maybe its a process, maybe its the quality of the leaf, I’m no expert, I just know that Kusmi Tea produces some of the smoothest drinking tea on the planet. That (I think) is why they are so appealing to many tea drinkers. Since my Troika experience I’ve had many other teas by Kusmi, but this remains my favorite. If you like Earl Grey and Orange but hate tannin, you owe it to yourself to give this a try.