I’ve been curious about Kuura for a while now, so this Black Friday I finally bit the bullet and placed an order with them since they were running a free shipping promo. I ordered the smallest size of every loose or compressed black and white tea that they carried, and then enough of the smaller “Go Juice” coins to hit the free shipping threshold…
I just want to say, before I even get into the tea itself, that my experience with Ayden/the company has been really impressive thus far: when I placed my order I was in the process of moving across country, so I asked if they were ok with holding my order for me until after I had moved and settled in my new city – I was prepared for them to say no since I’d never ordered from them before and they didn’t know who I was/we had no history. However, not only did they agree to hold it but then, after I had moved, they upgraded my shipping to express shipping at no extra charge to me so that my package could bypass the hold that Canada Post had placed on incoming international shipments (they weren’t accepting regular parcel mail) during the ongoing postal strike. I was completely, and pleasantly, surprised by that!
Unfortunately, there was a bit of a mail “mix up” – though not in any way Kuura’s fault. Both my package, and that of another individual in Canada who had ordered from them, were opened at the border for inspection, and after they had been resealed and OKed to be sent off two packages were erroneously sent to the opposite person. So, I received his package and he received mine. Kuura was great in handling the situation though; both he and I shipped the other’s package to the correct person and Kuura foot the bill for the shipping costs. So, even with the weird delays because of CP’s mistake my order from Kuura was STILL the very first of my Black Friday orders to arrive.
Just, great customer service – IMO.
As for the tea itself? Well, I’ve only tried this one so far so we’ll have to wait and see what I think of the rest of my haul as I get to tasting them. I picked this one pretty arbitrarily to start off with, and I steeped it up Gong Fu during one of the afternoons of my vacation. I did stack the infusions roughly three at a time though in a very large chahai, so even though I brewed about twelve infusions from the leaf I only drank around four “cups” of the steeped liquor.
In between cups, I broke up the flavor of the tea itself with pomegranate arils. I like pomegranate a lot but it’s expensive and inconvenient to eat, so around Christmas I usually treat myself to one or two of them and take the time that I wouldn’t during the rest of the year to break into the fruit and pick out all of the arils. This year I paired them with the tea, and made more of an “experience” out of it.
The tea itself was very nice; somewhat befitting its name it had some lovely sweet and floral honeysuckle notes that made up a large portion of the tea’s profile. My first “cup” of tea (infusions one through three) tasted the most of this light, fresh honeysuckle profile. Overtime it developed to be a little creamier, both in terms of flavor and mouthfeel. Sort of like creamed honey, but also kind of just like fresh cream? With typical white tea hay notes accompanying. I don’t think I’ve said enough lately how much I love the combo of strong hay and cream notes in a white tea; it’s probably my favourite quality in white tea next to that cucumber note I often get from more fresh whites. Finally, especially in my last “cup” of this one, there was a pleasantly medicinal undertone. It’s kind of hard to convey why something medicinal tasting would be pleasant, but I think it’s primarily because it adds depth to the rest of the profile while not being a dominating force. A little medicinal? Good! A lot medicinal? Bad.
The pomegranate was, well, pomegranate. I think if I was eating it while drinking the tea it would have been too bright and juicy/acidic to work as a pairing. However, in between cups while I was brewing out all of my stacked infusions I found that pop of fruit a really nice contrast to the profile of the tea. I definitely liked this tea a lot, and I’m excited to further explore the rest of my order.
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amrDnxnohlo&index=3&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&t=0s