Cusa Tea

Sipdown! Admittedly, I wasn’t paying super close attention to this one today. One perk of powdered teas is that they are very portable and easy to add to bottled water, so I tend to use them for travel. Today I used it at the ballpark, which only allows outside beverages in if they are sealed plastic bottles of water. So after we made it past security, I cracked open the water, added the tea powder, and shook until blended. Historically, I remember Cusa teas not always dissolving perfectly under these circumstances, but today it did. But between the heat and the game, I wasn’t giving this my full attention. Which is fine. It’s mildly fruity and sweet, it’s caffeinated, it’s inoffensive. Sometimes that’s all you need.

I wanted to like this, but it was so bitter and gross I had to pour it out. I could taste a bit of lemon, but there were too many other negative flavors there. I grabbed this little packet of powder out of the last TTB.

Very appreciative that this has no sugar in it. I needed something soothing after digging through Ancestry stuff today. Got all the way back to the 1700s. This has a bit of an apple flavor. Makes sense that it also has the name ground apple (Chamomile that is). The wet aroma is meh. Honestly I’m not a fan of the taste either but I do feel calmed.

- A little too tart/hibiscus forward with not nearly enough rose
- But I think diluting this would actually make it drinkable
- Would be better iced, I’m sure…
- Also interesting to see another hibiscus rose flavoured thing
- That combo is definitely becoming more and more trendy

- Had to do a swish, spit, and MAJOR rinse for this one because it has mushrooms in it
- Taste wise it was kind of bland/boring to me
- Just a sort of generic sweetness? Like drinking straight licorice root water…

- I actually didn’t hate how this one tasted
- Basically a really sweet/licorice-y ginger
- However this tea has senna, which is the herb in “weightloss tea” that makes you shit
- So BIG pass on the entire concept; I’m not really pro laxative teas in any way
- Though props, I guess, for figuring out one of the nicest ways to phrase the name!?

- Something about this flavour was incredibly familiar to me
- I didn’t like this one but I also didn’t hate it, and I preferred it to the mango option
- The peach is sweet and generic, like an artificial “peach juice”
- The green tea hints at sharp sourness like the straight green but it tamer
- I would want to dilute to soften the green tea but the peach flavour is too light for that

- This was actually a super forgettable tea from the offerings I tried today
- Given how awful the others were, maybe forgettable is the best compliment I could give?
- Light and fruity; don’t know that it was really distinctly mango though
- But I see the appeal/application this flavour might have
- Also the green tea wasn’t as fowl as the straight green

- The fact this is described as instant green tea “without bitterness” is a LIE!
- Very, very bitter and acrid
- With the first wave of flavour/top notes having intense sour/sharp grassy high notes
- In no world could I drink a full cup of this

Explored more of these Cusa instant teas today – just had a chance to grab sips of each one though, so not gonna do a flavour deep dive like I did last time. More of a jot notes/snap impressions of the teas type of thing…

- This was the best flavour of the ones I tried today
- Still a bit bitter/rough around the edges
- But had the thick malty taste I want in an English Breakfast
- Would hold up to milk, I think
- Could actually see myself using this flavour, and only this flavour, as a water substitute

This was the worst to me; it’s clearly a roasted oolong but it tastes bakey and burnt. There’s also a strange mix of very sharp sourness that cuts at the sides of the tongue, like a bad grassy note, and a bitter finish like cheap store bought coffee grounds. I don’t know how you would make this flavour profile approachable, even for someone who doesn’t have any familiarity with what oolong should taste like…

I wanted to like this one a lot because it’s so, so clove heavy and I do like cloves A LOT. However, it’s also heavy on the cinnamon and ginger, and the clove is so extremely intense when ground down like this that it’s just numbing…

This one was really unpleasant for me, but interestingly it was mostly the lemon peel in the blend that I thought I was responding poorly too and less the instant black tea itself…

It starts incredibly sharp and acrid, with a REALLY piercing lemon note. From there, the taste quickly becomes strongly bitter/pithy and hard to choke down. I could see where the unsweetened Southern style iced tea inspirations might be coming from, but the vision didn’t feel realized. I thought that maybe I could mellow out/thin the acrid sourness or bitter finishing notes by watering down the drink, but it just didn’t work out in my favour…

It’s a shame, because I think an instant black tea and lemon powder is one that I could see myself actually incorporating into my day by day. Just, not this one.

Ignoring the wellness marketing because, just, nah…

This is shockingly the most palatable “instant” mint type tea/powder I’ve ever had – though I still can’t picture a situation in which I would actually drink a full cup of it. Still, it’s surprisingly quite smooth and even a little creamy and it doesn’t have any of the muddy/dirty herbal mint quality I’d observed in other comparable tea powders. The honeysuckle’s presence is debatable, but I suppose if you’re thinking of it as more of a mellow sweetness rather than a floral profile you could probably say that it’s been achieved…

I don’t like “general Wellness” teas/teas that try to imply they’re good for weightloss nor do I typically like instant tea powders – but I had a chance to try a handful of these Cusa instant teas and since I do like trying new things I figured I’d give them a try anyway despite reservations…

Disregarding the wellness messaging in its entirety, I didn’t hate this instant powder. That may not seems like shining praise, but for a tea of this nature it might be as close to it as you’ll get. It’s a “Tangerine Peel and Cinnamon” flavour, and those two notes do sort of translate in the flavour, especially the cinnamon. The orange is actually MUCH lighter than I’d have expected though because I would have thought either a brightness or sweetness from some orange might actually give some life to this tea. Instead, I’d describe the taste as cinnamon forward and oddly pastry like!? Like, it’s almost like drinking a strange type of gingerbread or cinnamon forward spice loaf. I hesitate to say it, but I almost got the sense it could be quite good in milk!?