Origins of Tea

1867, Pavel in St Petersburg
The eldest son of a peasant family, Pavel Michailovitch Kousmichoff left home at the age of 14 to look for an employment in St Petersburg. There he found work as a delivery boy for a tea merchant. The shop manager soon realized that the boy had enormous potential and taught him the art of blending tea. Pavel continued to work for the tea merchant until his marriage to Alexandra, the daughter of a successful paper merchant. His employer was so happy to see him marry into such a good family that he gave him a small teahouse on Sadovaïa Street. And that is how the P. M. Kousmichoff teahouse started in 1867. Alexandra gave him six children, including his son Viatcheslav (1878) and his daughter Elisabeth (1880) for whom he created the special blend that soon became the tsar’s tea, Bouquet of Flowers. By 1901 Pavel owned 11 teahouses as well as a large building big enough for his entire family. He was very rich and his company was one of the three largest tea companies in Russia.

1907, Viatcheslav in London
In 1907, he sent his eldest son to London to learn about tea. Viatcheslav started by opening the company’s British subsidiary, P.M. Kousmichoff & Sons at 11, Queen Victoria Street. At the time, the City was the world capital of the tea trade, which helped Viatcheslav to become a master tea blender. Viatcheslav returned to Russia and after the death of his father in 1908 took over the family business. He successfully built up the company to own a total of 51 teahouses in all major cities of Russia.

1917, a new start in Paris
In 1916, sensing disaster, Viatcheslav transferred part of his fortune to the company’s London office and in 1917 opened a workshop in Paris, the Maison Kusmi-Thé. While he spent most of his time in Paris, his family remained in Saint Petersburg and on the eve of the Revolution, without realizing how right his instincts were, he decided to send them spend the summer in the Caucasus – just as the Revolution broke out. As the “Reds” moved south so Viatcheslav organized his family’s escape, first to Constantinople and then to Paris in 1920. In Paris, Viatcheslav and his wife lived the life of the wealthy with their three children, Constantin, Nadia and Vera. The children had tutors and enjoyed sport and music, Constantin and Nadia playing the violin and Vera the piano. Vera attended the Paris Conservatory where she met Rachmaninov and went on to become a famous opera singer.

1927, Between the wars in Berlin
The family prospered during the interwar years, opening offices in New York, Hamburg and Constantinople. However, Viatcheslav decided to settle his main business in Berlin since there was a large Russian community there. Viatcheslav Kousmichoff died just after World War II in 1946 leaving his son Constantin to take over a family business much weakened by the war years. But Constantin didn’t have the same business acumen as his father or grandfather. He was a man who loved life and burned the candle at both ends. An artist and a tea lover, he just didn’t understand figures. On the brink of bankruptcy in 1972 he sold the business for a pittance. During the years that followed, the Kousmichoff company continued to sell Kusmi teas with uneven success. Like Constantin, the people who had bought the company were artistic and had a certain understanding of flavors, but their management skills left a lot to be desired.

In 2003, Kousmichoff was bought by the Orebi brothers who came from a long line of commodity merchants. Having traded cotton in the 19th century, non-ferrous metals in the first part of the 20th century, the Orebi family decided in 1962 to focus on cocoa and coffee – a move that naturally led them to tea. They took up the challenge to carry on the traditions of Pavel, Viatcheslav and Constantin Kousmichoff and to develop an international reputation for the Kusmi Tea brand.

Kusmi’s know-how
When Pavel started out in business, all he knew about tea was that it was something that his family drank all day long around the samovar. This bitter liquid was sweetened by a lump of sugar or fresh fruit placed in the mouth before taking a sip of tea.
In Russia where tea had for centuries been a national beverage, the tea merchants had attained such perfection in the blending and flavoring that their blends became known as Russian teas. Pavel learned about the tea that was imported into Russia at the time. A rarity in Europe, Russian tea was of excellent quality because it was imported overland and so saved from the ravages of damp caused by sea transport. The young man learned to enjoy teas from Yunnan with their taste of damp earth, and low caffeine Keemun tea. He discovered strong Assam teas and fine Darjeeling gardens gradually learning to make blends that satisfied every type of customer. Pavel created a number of blends for all tastes and times of day. Most of these blends still exist today and contribute to the richness of the Kusmi tea range.

In true peasant style, he numbered his creations so that today we can easily date the various blends. In chronological order, we have the Grand Yunnan N°12 and 21; the Polish Blend N°18; the Russian Morning N°24 in its red packaging, N°27 for the English taste, now called the English Breakfast, and Darjeeling N°37. “Caravan”, the Russian Evening tea, N°50, was named after the caravans of camels that brought the tea from China before the Trans Siberian Railway opened in 1900. These teas were the fi rst sold by Kousmichoff between 1867 and 1880. Then came N°108, Bouquet of Flowers in 1880 - this was the tea drunk by the tsar right up to the Revolution. Then the Souchong Imperial N°110 in a black box, the Jasmine tea N°155 and the smoked China tea N°210.

In addition to these classic blends, Pavel also created a number of fruity teas using fruit, flowers and spices. Every Russian New Year he treated his customers to a special blend called Prince Vladimir, a happy blend of citrus fruit, vanilla and spices. He created this blend in 1888 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the foundation of Holy Russia by Vladimir the Great. The very same recipe is still used today to produce the most popular of Kusmi teas. Around 1910 Viatcheslav made his own contribution to the company’s blends with the Windsor and Victoria created in London. These are still sold today. Viatcheslav’s arrival in Paris marked a turning point in the history of Kusmi teas raising them to the heights of gastronomy. He created a whole new range of perfumed teas based on the available flavors to perfect his blends. Viatcheslav, and after him Constantin, created a multitude of aromatic teas. The most famous is Anastasia, created in memory of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of tsar Nicholas who was rumored to have survived the massacre that engulfed the rest of her family. More recently, numerous new blends have been added to the Kusmi tea range: Kashmir Tchai, a blend of tea and spices, Green Tea with spearmint, the Spicy Chocolate tea specially created for the Salon du Chocolat, and Saint Petersburg created for the city’s 300th anniversary in 2003. Ginger and Lemon Green Tea has become a great classic alongside the new range of wellness teas such as the Detox, Tea with seaweed and decaffeinated Earl Grey with citrus fruits.