I came downstairs on a break from email and homework and writing and reviewing to make something to eat, and I figured I'd set a pot on to brew while I figured out what I wanted. And then the tea totally stole the show. I made my pot, then, since it was so nice out, I sat on the back porch while I drank the first cup, and the cats sat with me in the sunshine, and we watched lizards and bees. (There's bees here! Big fat fuzzy ones that can only be making honey somewhere secret.)
I don't usually milk or sugar my tea, but Kusmi is very strong, and it's made for milking and sugaring, and even just a few minutes while I cut an onion for lunch (it's onion-garlic rice, not just an onion), it got too strong and bitter to drink alone. So I threw in maybe three tablespoons of sugar for the whole pot, and a cup or so of the almond milk I had left in the fridge, then put the filter back in so the tea would make up for the mellowing of the milk (it always always always tastes watered down to me unless the tea is also infused in the milk, no matter what milk I use. Well, except for goat milk; that didn't infuse at all, and totally overwhelmed the tea flavor.)
It's the top one in this pic. Anastasia is china black and ceylon tea flavored with bergamot, lemon and orange. I'm pretty sure the three other flavors I have from Kusmi have the same ingredients, but they all somehow taste different. This one tastes citrusy, but not like Earl Grey, and when you milk it with almond milk, it gets a little richer, and the almond smell just blooms, and coordinates perfectly. It's great.
Kusmi is a sort of astringent, high-tannin tea, anyway, and even with the milk, you feel that semi-dryness on your tongue, but the milk eases a lot of that, and it actually comes across as pretty nice. It stops the milkiness and the sugar from getting cloying or from lingering too long in your taste-buds.
No comments:
Post a Comment