Simpson & Vail

Thanks MissB for such a generous sample of this wonderful tea! You must have known I would just love it.. and you got it right… I do.

I wasn’t sure if I should try this one with the remnants of my head cold or not, but I have been looking through my S&V catalog lately trying to decide when/what to order from them. You see, when MissB sent me a generous sample of Candy Cane & a sample of Cinnamon Chocolate Brownie from S&V I really liked them so I went online looking to see what all they offered and found they had a catalog, it arrived safely and is sitting on the end table by the couch with notes by things I might like to order… narrowing it down is the problem. Anyway, the Coconut Macaroon was one at the top of my list to try… & here she sent it to me.. just like she knew :) I just couldn’t wait a couple of more days.

Dry, I couldn’t make out much fragrance, but my nose isn’t working well either. Steeped, this came through as true coconut macaroon. You know the ones like you get at the Chinese buffet that are dense and sweet and yummy? I hope when I get completely better that I like it even more.

My mom and sister love coconut macaroons too… do I dare share?!?! I’m not sure how my mom would feel about a flavored teas, but my sister enjoys iced fruit teas… bet she’ll love this.

Thanks MissB for letting me give this a shot! (170)

It’s a tasty green tea with lots of cream and butter to it. I don’t get Irish Cream from it, but I do get cream.

thank you for this sample Marcel Duchamp! I didn’t remember this was smoky until I brewed it, so I’m glad I separated this sample from the others! I needed something brisk this morning. A Scottish inspired tea should probably be brisk, so I went with this one… Scotland probably gets the same amount of sun as NY… this better be the last week of this snow! I’m so sun deprived! I steeped up the teaspoon and a half for this cup. It’s gone now! Both steeps are pretty much the same — surprisingly smoky but it seems like it’s on an assam type base, so that seems different. It is brisk, as I expected, slightly malty. Smoky smoky! I wish had more to say about this one… but their description is definitely accurate. But it’s another good one from S&V. I’ve tried a few from them now and they are always good!

Sipdown no. 21 of 2016 (no. 232 total).

Not much to add to my previous notes on this one. It’s a nice tea, but not really an Earl Grey and not really creamy. More of a fruity floral, a la some of the Kusmi Russian blends.

Revisiting this one today for my first morning tea. I have very much the same impression that I had the first time around, which is that this is a tasty tea. But if I was doing a blind tasting of it, I probably wouldn’t identify it as an Earl Grey. And I certainly wouldn’t identify it as a creamy Earl Grey.

I might identify it as a fruity floral, in the same general category as one of the Kusmi black tea blends like St. Petersburg. I don’t taste vanilla or cream, I don’t taste bergamot. I taste something vaguely fruity that is more of a red fruit taste than a citrus taste, that starts fruity and ends floral. Almost rose-like.

Torn on the rating. It gets a lot of points for tastiness and smoothness, but it doesn’t taste like what it says it is, i.e., an earl grey creme. I’m going to keep the rating where it is. I really like the tea (points up). But it isn’t what I think of as an Earl Grey creme (points down).

I think this is the last of my Simpson & Vail Earl Greys. It has a lot in common with the other two.

Usually I smell bergamot in Earl Grey dry leaf, sometimes eye-wateringly so, but whatever I smell usually smooths out and becomes must more mellow after steeping. I don’t smell bergamot in this dry leaf, unless it is the vaguely floral scent I’m smelling. I don’t smell citrus. I don’t really smell vanilla either. But I do smell a nice, solid, earthy black tea.

That tea also takes center stage in the aroma after steeping. It’s malty and sweet which makes me think there may be some Chinese black tea in the blend and I suspect there is some Ceylon because of the color. It has a deep red, almost garnet liquor. The description doesn’t say what sort of black tea is in the blend, but I am guessing it is similar to what is in the Earl Grey Aromatic, which contains both Ceylon and Chinese Blacks, as well as Assam and Darjeeling. I don’t get the heft of Assam here, but perhaps that’s the influence of the cream (even though I don’t smell cream).

In flavor, this is a tasty, sweet, medium-full bodied black tea with a floral note. Because I don’t really get a distinctive bergamot flavor, It doesn’t really taste like an Earl Grey to me, but then, neither did the S&V plain Earl Grey. I’m also not really tasting cream, which makes me want to do a side by side between this and the S&V non-creamy Earl.

Essentially, I have the same impression of this as an Earl Grey crème that I had of its sibling as an Earl Grey, which is to say I think the tea is lovely but it doesn’t really seem to meet the criteria for an Earl Grey, with the additional point that I don’t really get the crème either. Maybe my taster is off. I’ll try it side by side another time and see what happens. For now, rating it the same as its sibling.

This was an EU Travelling Teabox Try.

There’s no two ways of saying this. It smells like soap. Not even perfumed soap, just soap soap. No hints of vanilla or of rooibos. Only soap. It smells exactly like the way accidentally getting a little shampoo in your mouth in the shower tastes.

It tastes like rooibos and not too much like soap. There’s a little bit of that sensation hanging in the nostrils after sipping, but I expect that’s because of how closely related to taste the sense of smell is. The vanilla flavouring is not very strong and mainly shows up as an aftertaste. Unfortunately that’s where it gets mixed in with that shampoo in the mouth feeling, so all in all, this is actually not very pleasant.

I can’t seem to get rid of that feeling of shampoo in my sinuses.

Originally I had intended this to be a Take and take all of it, but having tasted it, I thought better of it and put it back in the box. Demoted.

A vanilla flavoured blend that I’m scoring low. Of all things! O.o I’m very disappointed.

Sipdown (194/196)!

So, I mixed the last little bit of this (about half a cup worth) with the last little bit of Herbal Infusion’s Strawberry Cream Cacao (also about half a cup worth) with the hope that the two would pair well because they’re really similar and that they’d piggyback on each other’s flavours – both individually are a little weak – and create and nice, strong cup.

How excited was I when that turned out to be the case? Well, the answer is pretty fucking excited. Combined, the two made for a tea with a thicker mouthfeel and almost a “spongey” chocolate cake flavour accompanied by a very rich, flavourful, and aromatic strawberry that was indulgent and delectable.

That’s what I call tea blending success! Some really lovely sipdowns indeed.

Thanks Courtney for the sample! I still have one more cup worth left after this too!

This smells amazing and incredibly aromatic; sort of like a strawberry shortcake (plus black tea) – however my concern making it would be that like the Rootbeer I had earlier today the flavour would fall incredibly short to the delicious aromatic smell. However, steeped up it’s not too bad. I mean, yeah it doesn’t quite live up to the smell but it’s still a really nice strawberry flavour with a fudgey cake like (not shortcake) layer underneath and a nice enough black base (no bitterness or astringency). It reminds me of DT’s Love Tea #7 with a bit of a step up in strawberry flavour.

That said, I have lots of Love Tea #7 so I wouldn’t consider getting more of this one until I was out of Love Tea #7 – which could be awhile.

Thanks Courtney!

Sipdown (189/191)!

Thanks Courtney for the sample! there was enough left I probably could have made two small cups, but I figured I’d over leaf a bit and see if that would create more of the flavour that the dry leaf promises. I also toyed with adding milk, but wound up passing in favour of using the milk for a match latte later tonight.

Overleafing, did bring out more flavour so this is a more enjoyable cup in comparison to the first one. What I like about this blend in particular, is that it’s pretty creamy and has strong vanilla notes but doesn’t claim to be a “float” tea – at least as far as the name goes (I haven’t read the tea description, though I probably should). However, it’s still really light overall.

I may have slightly oversteeped this (five minutes), which could have been a help and hindrance. It may have added to the strong rootbeer flavouring, but there’s also a little underlying bitterness that’s a touch unpleasant.

I hate to say it, but my favourite black rootbeer tea is probably still the discontinued DT version (please bring it back for summer or something!) despite all its floaties. Just because Cherry Cola was crap doesn’t mean that one was too!

In other news, I think I’ve finally stopped adding to my swap for Courtney – now I just have to find the time/money to send it.

This one came today from Courtney and I could not wait to try it because I must try allll the rootbeer teas, and this one smelled incredibly intoxicatingly delicious.

I have to say though, ok, I literally zoned out for a solid 15 minutes trying to finish this sentence the taste of this one really fell short for me. Nothing like the smell, which was really saddening. Very weak in flavour :/

That said, this did have a strong vanilla flavour – so it probably could have really passed as a “float” tea had the rootbeer been kicked up a notch. Oh well, I was really happy to try it; one more of many rootbeer blends checked off!

Thanks so much for this one, MissB! Sweetness, peppermint… dead on for a candy cane! I still haven’t decided whether I like this one or Tiesta’s Minty Winter Wonderland better. They’re similar enough that I don’t feel the need to regularly stock both, but one of them definitely needs to be on hand.

Oooh, sipdown! (167)
I didn’t realize this was green rooibos when I decided to make it, but that’s cool. It’s midnight. Rooibos time! I don’t think I’ve had green rooibos before, but it’s interesting. This really tastes like strong coconut, and cream, and sweetness. Very decadent!

Thanks MissB!

Whoa this is rich. Very, very rich! Maybe even too rich? It is a liquified brownie smothered in caramel. I think I would really need to be in the mood for this one as I am finding it hard to get through right now. Thank you Courtney! I think this will be something I turn to when I really need that brownie flavor.

Sipdown!! (92)

Thank you Courtney for the chance to try this tea. Really, it was not bad but it was a bit weak and I think I will stick to my Butiki version that I just stocked up on. For that reason, I am not sad to see it go.

Usually flavor becomes more pronounced as tea cools but I swear this becomes more diluted and watery. Very, very strange.

Thank you Courtney! I think this cup is more flavorful than the last I had but I think I have been spoiled by all the “float” teas because I find myself searching for the delicious vanilla creaminess that I have come to expect with root beer flavor.

Thank you Courtney for the chance to try this tea. It is not my favorite root beer tea (I think that goes to Butiki’s Root Beer Float Honeybush) but it is certainly a pleasant cup.

In other news, apparently there will be a Supernatural spin-off called “Supernatural: Tribes”. Has anyone heard about this?! What is Supernatural without a Winchester? I am not sure how I feel about this…

Sipdown!! (121)

This is yet another tea from the package Courtney sent my way (Thank you!!). I am really enjoying the nutty flavor to this. However, the base is also quite prominent and I find it is competing with the flavor and really taking away from the cup.

I got this tea (I think it’s this tea! They have a lot of Earl Grey’s!) from wheezybee. Thank you!

It’s super bergamot-y. Really a lot bergamot-y. I’m enjoying it right now, but I’m not sure Earl Grey teas are something I love quite so much anymore.

The base is hearty, and this is definitely a wake-up tea. Perhaps a 2 minute steep would have been better, as this is a little strong.

ooh. Milk. I always used to add milk to my EG teas. Oh yeah. A splash of almond milk and a little maple syrup, and this is really tasty. The tea still feels oversteeped, but I won’t have problems drinking it now. :)

hmmm. this one was an odd mix for me. a light, sweet, SMOKEY, green. an interesting experience, although a strange one for me.

thank you to MissB! not my thing, but how could i have known that without trying? =0)

This was in my most recent S&V order. I find they do dessert teas so well, though granted I also tire of them quicker than other teas. But while I enjoy them, they are delightful.

The scent is predominantly chocolate and black tea. In my initial sip I’m getting some caramel flavour with some chocolate in the background. The chocolate is more towards the end of the sip. With each sip the chocolate seems to become more obvious and melds with the caramel well. I think I’ll try this at a lower temperature next time to see if it coaxes a bit more flavour out.

I’ve also decided to hunt for a great maple tea. I’m open to suggestions. :)

Hmm. I think I missed reviewing this tea when I had it on its own. Oops. Sorry, Fjellrev. Thank you for the samples! :)

I’ve mixed this 50/50 with the Chocolate Chai, as I only had 1 tsp of each left and wanted a full mug. It smells so chocolatey. I even added some dark chocolate silk almond milk to it, for extra chocolate. You might think I was hormonal or something, the way I’m sipping down these chocolatey teas! (255, go me!)

Oh, this mix is really good! So much chocolate. A little chai spice, but not too much. Some caramel buttery sweetness thrown in. This hits the spot. :)

I don’t think I’d buy either of these teas, but now I’m thinking of adding chocolate milk to their English Toffee, just for a different flavour!

Sipdown no. 24 of 2016 (no. 235 total).

It’s pouring rain this morning. No. 2 has a field trip in all of this and we have a parent conference for no. 1, plus I have a car full of items from my cleaning spree to take to donate along with other errands. So it will be a busy day.

This is a nice way to start. I really do like this one, even though like the other S&V Earl Grey’s I get little to no bergamot, and today I’m also getting a savory note (rosemary maybe) which I don’t ordinarily adore in tea. The floral notes are so gentle and pleasant, though, that they make me want to drink this again.

It also appears that I didn’t include all my Simpson & Vail teas in my cupboard. I just poured two of them into tins as a result of recent sipdowns and noticed I didn’t include them in the inventory, I guess because the bags were in the sample bins. But they’re about 2 oz a piece, so they are enough to consider cupboard material. Must remedy.