Sweet Love – Black tea with spices & pink pepper

Sweet Love by Kusmi Tea, the sweet and spicy black tea with pink peppercorns & guarana

Sweet Love is a black tea with an aromatic spice bouquet: cardamom, cinnamon, anise, and cloves, plus pink peppercorns and guarana seeds, refined with licorice root. Note: contains licorice – excessive consumption should be avoided if you have high blood pressure. Loose in a 100g pink Kusmi metal tin. Seductively spicy, naturally sweet, with a hint of heat from the pink peppercorns.

Sweet Love by Kusmi Tea is a black tea composition that caresses the palate both softly and piquantly. The base is a robust organic black tea, topped with a four-part spice ensemble of cardamom, cinnamon, anise, and cloves. Licorice root provides natural sweetness – in Sweet Love, it replaces sugar. Pink peppercorns and guarana add distinctive accents: the peppercorns with their gently fruity heat and characteristic anise note, the guarana seeds as a silent caffeine reserve in the background.

Important note: The tea contains licorice. Individuals with high blood pressure should avoid excessive consumption.

Dark red infusion, spicy-sweet with a peppery note

Upon opening the pink metal tin – this color is Kusmi's trademark for this tea – a complex scent unfolds: the sweet warmth of cinnamon, the slightly citrusy aroma of cardamom, the spice of cloves, with anise in the background and the floral-peppery tip of pink peppercorns. The leaves are a lively mix of dark black tea leaves, light cardamom pods, visible cinnamon splinters, pink peppercorns, and lighter licorice root pieces.

In the cup, the tea appears a dark reddish-brown. The first sip is full-bodied and round, the licorice root immediately brings a gentle sweetness that almost tastes like licorice, without actually tasting like licorice. On top of that, the spices: cinnamon warms, cardamom opens, cloves add depth.

The pink peppercorn only comes through in the aftertaste – not sharp, but perfumed, almost a bit like freshly ground pepper over strawberries. The finish leaves a warm, round sweetness that makes sugar superfluous.

In the afternoon with cake or in the evening with a novel

This Kusmi classic is a spiced black tea with a dessert character. It pairs well with apple strudel and baked apples, with gingerbread and speculoos during Advent, with chocolate cake and raspberries, and with a slice of cheesecake. It's also a welcome companion to oriental pastries with honey and nuts – warm, sweet, and spicy all at once.

The tea tastes best pure – the licorice root brings its own sweetness, which is usually sufficient. If you want the full spice effect, you can add a splash of hot milk or oat milk – this turns the black tea into a kind of spiced latte, which is in no way inferior to classic chai. You need about 2 tablespoons of loose tea per liter for a pot, steeped with 90°C hot water for 3 to 5 minutes.

Within the Kusmi spiced black tea family, Sweet Love is the sweetest variant – it gets spicier with Tchai of the Tiger, the Indian chai with ginger, cardamom, and pepper. Prince Wladimir presents itself as Russian-spicier with orange and vanilla. If you're looking for the licorice component in the green tea register, you'll find it in Label Impérial.

The Kusmi Trio of Expure Addict, Boost, and Sweet Love

In our assortment, Sweet Love forms a unique trio of modern compositions with two other Kusmi creations: Expure Addict with grapefruit, mate, and guarana, and Boost with mate, green tea, and spices. All three come from the same Kusmi line of modern tea creations – each with its own character: Sweet Love sweet-spicy and peppery, Expure Addict zesty-grapefruit, Boost warm and spice-heavy. If you know one of the three blends, you'll find exciting counterparts in the other sisters.

The pink peppercorn in this blend – botanically not a true pepper, but the fruit of the Brazilian pepper tree Schinus terebinthifolius – gives the tea its characteristic anise-pepper note. It grows in South America and La Réunion and, despite its name, is not a hot spice, but a floral-fruity one.

The history of Kusmi Tea began in 1867 in Saint Petersburg, where 21-year-old Pavel Mikhailovich Kousmichoff opened his own tea house. After the Russian Revolution, the family fled to Paris in 1917. Since 2017, almost all teas are organically grown, bottled in the manufactory in Le Havre. In our Kusmi Tea collection, you can find an overview of all blends.