Simpson & Vail

Picked this one tonight because a: I remember liking it and b:I am again avoiding caffeine. This is a nice savory rooibos from Simpson and Vail. The lavender and rose give it a savory character. It has rose hips in it as well but that is a subtle fruit and it doesn’t provide much sweetness. Still, it is a tasty tea for a rooibos. Compared to savory rooibos tea it is excellent.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 5 min.

I taste all the appropriate flavors: Caramel, Chocolate and Coconut. This tea has a great aroma while sipping and round feeling in the mouth. (round?) guess that it feels well balanced. The black tea is not overwhelming the dessert-y feel of the tea. I can sense the Simpson and Vail quality that is usually a part of their lovely teas. This the kind of tea that I love. Wish I had more!

Bought a one ounce sample of this with my last order. This is particularly good. It brews up to a nice floral tasting cup with just a hint of bitterness, that characteristic oolong flavor that can be bitter. The dry leaves smell amazing on this tea, very floral. This is a tea I find myself wanting more of. Simpson and Vail does not get much press on Steepster but I am a big fan of their teas and especially their prices. Their teas may not be quite as good as Butiki, but their prices are far better. There teas may be half as good as Butiki but that is debatable. What is not debatable is that their prices are less than half that of Butiki. For good value priced tea Simpson and Vail is hard to beat. I have never gotten a true low quality tea from them and I have always gotten a good value.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 2.5 tsp leaf and 175 degree water for 2 min.

My first few infusions of this tea left me wanting a bit more from it. It came off as weak, astringent and pretty boring overall. After quite a few tries I’ve found that using 1.5-2 tsp per 8oz and steeping for no more than 3 minutes actually produce a nicely drinkable cup if you aren’t going to add any additions. As this is supposed to be taken with heavy cream and sugar I understand that there is a need for it to have a good bit of astringency to balance those additions out, but it isn’t pleasant if you’re drinking it black.
I probably won’t reorder since I don’t like to add anything to my tea, but I’m happy I got to try it. Over-leafing it a touch it brews up a full-bodied malty tea that’s a great choice for cutting through the sweetness of desserts.

Picked this one tonight because I am again avoiding caffeine. It is somewhat sweet and somewhat zesty from the ginseng. Ginseng has an interesting flavor to say the least. It is slightly savory in nature but slightly zesty. It has an appealing taste that is hard to describe. Simpson and Vail’s best rooibos teas are this sort of savory rooibos teas. They don’t in my opinion do as well in the category of sweet rooibos.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 5 min.

Today I learn that Assam can go with Mexican food. Or I’m just weird. There was the malty scent when I brewed. The flavour seemed a bit darker than I was expecting, but still good. This might be something used in the breakfast blends.

After a root canal followed by an asthma attack I figured I deeded to detox. Woke up at 5 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Figured I needed to detox so I thought of this tea. It has two main flavors, pomegranite and the burdock root which I don’t know how to describe.

This tea is not bad for an herbal. It has two main flavors. One I believe comes from the burdock root and is quite unusual, not really unpleasant, just strange. The other is the pomegranate flavor, quite nice. I am not sure as to the detox benefits of this tea, I think that it is totally unproven about detox teas. I bought it because it looked interesting.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 2 tsp leaf and boiling water for 5 min.

I finished my sample of this Ost sent me AGES ago this afternoon. It is still quite tasty! Really hit the spot today :)

Thank you so much Ost for the sample!

This tea wasn’t even on my radar…but it should have been. It tastes just like one of those crunchy almond cookies some Chinese restaurants serve. YUM! My only complaint is the base tea is kind of flat and boring. Which is really the problem with most flavored teas, no matter how good the flavoring! sigh

This is a good tea but I don’t find it to be a fantastic tea. It is however, highly enjoyable, and worth Simpson and Vail’s reasonable price. They don’t get a Butiki price for this tea, I forget what I paid. The mango notes are nice but could be a little stronger. The tea itself is very dark in color but the tea has none of the flavors of a roasted oolong, no roasted barley flavor at all. As I usually don’t like roasted barley flavor all that much this is good.

I picked this tea today by chance. I had planned to drink Happy Kombucha from David’s Tea this morning, a blend I bought the other day. That will probably get returned without me ever having tried it as I have no reason to trust it. I saw on the ingredient list “Gluten Free Wheat Starch” and am waiting for an email response from David’s Tea to prove that the wheat starch is gluten free. If they don’t come back with a report saying they test each batch for gluten I will not drink it. I want to see evidence.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and 190 degree water for 3 min.

I agree with the other reviewer, this tea is good but not great. The Mango flavor is nice but not right where it should be in flavor. There is a bit of a vegetal flavor beneath that flavor. The leaves are dark like a charcoal roasted oolong but there is no charcoal flavor so they are presumably light roasted at most.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and 190 degree water for 3 min.

Lewis & Clark TTB #5

I usually add sweetener to breakfast teas, but started this one plain, and I’m glad I did. It has a nice, understated nose, powerful flavor, and excellent, long finish. Slightly tart but not bitter. There aren’t a lot of extraneous flavors, but this is a perfectly balanced definition of what a Scottish tea should be.

This tea is not bad and not incredible, it falls somewhere in between. It is not, however, a traditional Russian Caravan blend, which I didn’t realize when I bought it. It is really a Russian Earl Grey with bergamot added. It has a relatively nice lemony citrus taste to it. I wouldn’t rush out to buy more, I will probably finish it before it goes bad in about two years or so of storage. Fans of Earl Grey might really like this tea.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 3 min.

This is absolutely the most horrid tasting tea I have ever drank. Even when you follow the brewing instructions it’s pretty bad. The rating I have given this is purely on it’s effect. I added 6 tsp of leaf and 4 tsp of valerian root to a glass kettle/teapot and boiled it for 10 minutes. The valerian is not really extracted by just steeping the tea. I have gotten good results from this before and hope it helps me get back to sleep when my prescription medicine has failed me. This tea by itself doesn’t really help me sleep, the addition of extra valerian root should.

I have insomnia again so I’m trying this tea. Made it differently. Put about seven teaspoons of tea in a glass teapot/kettle and added about 4 tsp valerian. But I didn’t steep it, I boiled it fore ten minutes. Tastes even worse. Didn’t know if that’s possible. Hopefully I extracted the valerian.

Drinking this for my insomnia. Sometimes it helps sometimes it doesn’t. It taste worse than any other tea I’ve had. This tea gets a 0 for taste. I steeped 6 tsp of leaf in 16oz of boiling water for 10 min. Lets see if it helps.

This tea is about the worst tasting tea in my collection, end of statement. It’s full of sour and unpleasant notes. It, however, contains ingredients that I am hoping will help me sleep. I added extra valerian root to this. My regular medication has failed me tonight so I am turning to this. On nights where it helps me sleep it’s worth an 85 rating.

Giving this another try for my insomnia tonight. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I wish I knew why it was hit or miss. It is definitely not the best tasting tea. The rating I gave it is purely for the effect. I find that agave syrup and honey cut the unpleasant flavors nicely. We will see if it has any effect on me tonight.

I brewed this once in a 14oz tea mug with 4 tsp leaf and boiling water for 7 min.

I am drinking this again tonight because the combination of my insomnia and abdominal pain is stronger than my Ambien. I could in theory take an extra ambien but then i would run out early. This tea has at times worked as a good booster shot for my Ambien.

By itself this tea tastes pretty bad. But today I added caramel rock sugar and honey and it actually tastes pretty good. Tomorrow I am going to order from Simpson and Vail as many of the separate components of this tea as possible. They sell the Valerian Root and the Passion Flowers that effect sleep in this tea. Combined with some Chamomile they ought to make a good falling asleep tea. They sell the herbs so why not experiment.

I brewed this once in an 14oz mug with 5 tsp leaf and boiling water for 7 min.

I have insomnia again tonight and am giving this tea another try. I made it extra strong and gave it extra time to steep. When my abdominal pain hits me usually nothing short of being run over by a truck will knock me out and there aren’t any trucks around tonight. The taste of this tea is pretty atrocious but if it works I don’t care.

I brewed this once in a 14oz mug with 5 tsp leaf and boiling water for 6 min 15 sec.