Simpson & Vail

This was one of the ones I bought from MissB! I’ve heard so much about S&V teas but haven’t made the jump to an order because I was afraid of the shipping costs (which are actually cheaper than listed to Canada if you just email and ask, or phone to place your order!)

Anyway, I was slightly disappointed with this, as I steeped it for 4.5 minutes and it was a little bitter. So perhaps I just need to steep it less. I’ll try it again tomorrow! (I’m not that disappointed. It smells really good and I fell it just needs a little tweaking to pop!)

Second dessert tea I have tasted from Simpson Vail. To cut to the chase, this tea tastes just like the apple cinnamon coffeecake I had. The only flavor I really taste with both, is a coffee cake kind of flavor. I tried to taste the strawberry on two different tastings, to no avail. I liked the coffee cake taste. These teas are actually turning my taste buds onto coffee, which is something new and unexpecting. I will never drink coffee the way I do tea, but until now I couldn’t appreciate coffee at all. Having my taste buds develop likes of new and different flavors has been fun.

My neighbor has been drinking more tea with me. She surprised me on Friday with 4 samples of Simpson and Vail, this being one of them. Two of the samples were dessert teas-this cake and then strawberry cupcake. I was surprised how closely they resembled each other. The main flavor I taste in this tea is a cake taste, similar to a coffee cake. I wonder if these teas are pleasing to both coffee/tea drinkers, me being just a tea drinker, the taste is one I am acquiring and starting to enjoy more with each cup. I have had this three times now, finishing off the sample. I am going to be trying more dessert teas for sure.

okay, i figured out the trick to this one!

add some agave syrup… spot of cream…. 4 minute steep….. h2o at oolong temp and eat salted moana loa macadamia nuts on the side!

NOW i get almond sugar cookie!!!!

Really does taste like a sugar cookie, surprisingly. It’s got the almond/sugar/pastry thing bang on, although again the base is a bit drying for me and pops out occasionally to hit me in the mouth. I am enjoying it however… a keeper.

Steeped this one a bit too long as well. Still yummy.

Strong flavoring again that assaults the nose even before you open the box it’s mailed in. It surprises me how much this tastes like an almond cookie. I’m missing the sugar bit (and that’s fine by me) however almond baked goods come out strong and clear.

This is one of the more fragrant of S&V’s offerings, and thus covered in tinfoil whenever I send it, as well as in my stash.

Steeped, it’s less flavorful, which surprised me. I wonder with S&V; I’m one of those people that steeps tea up at the temperature and time I think it should be if there’s zero instruction on the packaging. So, I guessed. 1 tsp per 8 ounces, boiling water, 4 minute steep. Perhaps I need to overleaf it?

It’s a lovely tea, full bodied and rich, however there’s only a hint of english toffee at the very end of the sip, and it lingers. Buttery is definitely covered however – a decadent treat in that respect.

Ah, yes. Okay, suggested steeping is boiling for 3 minutes. Will try that next time.

EDIT: The description says “light butterscotch” which is accurate. I guess I just expected more from the initial, delightful smell. Upping rating slightly.

Only one try with this tea so far. So I can’t give a good review until I’ve tried it at least once more. When I first read the title I read it as coconut and not cocomint. So when I took my first sip and was overcome with the mintyness of flavors swirling in my mouth I wasn’t quite sure of what to think. I wish that the company would give a better description… or any description at all as to their tea and what it is all about.

This is a VERY strong-smelling tea. It requires quarantining from my other teas. Just sayin’. ;)

Smells strongly of hazelnut before and after brewing. Flavor-wise, I get strong hazelnut (almost as if I can chew it, it’s so thick) and then the black base – which seems more apparent as it’s cooled. A touch of Truvia makes this taste decadent. I wish I’d grabbed a bit more.

I sipped this down last month whilst I was on a sip-stuff-down-in-order-to-justify-ordering-fresh-stuff phrase. It stayed quite fresh considering I got this last December. But as previously mentioned, I wouldn’t re-order. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t order from Simpson and Vail again in general. My brain and palate have issues with their bases.

I had this today with my late breakfast, which was French toast! First time I ever tried making it too. I’ve been feeling like spices today, and on top of the cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg I added to the egg mixture, I wanted to kick things up a notch.

Half and half and it’s pretty good, although I think it could have benefited from a touch of brown sugar to round out the slight bitterness from the spices. It would have been the perfect gingerbread chai.

Back from holidays. Nooooooo! My huge Eddie Bauer backpack, which was my carry-on, was basically filled with tea and desserts/chocolate. So sad. Plus Zen and Teavivre parcels were waiting for me when I got home. Long story short, my table is covered in tea and I swear my stash just doubled.

But I’m too lazy to review anything new. Thought I’d try this with some half and half I just picked up from the store. I like it this way the best, I think. Really pulls the spices together and tones down the sweetness. The cloves are the most prominent note, truly like in a spice cookie. Ginger and molasses are next.

Would I reorder? No, but it’s comforting on a rainy day.

Saving one of the best ones for last. The dry leaf truly smells like gingerbread. More accurately, both the dry leaf and the steeped tea smells like my homemade pepparkakor, minus the orange zest I add. I’m actually going to have one with my tea (and after I taste enough to accurately judge the tea on its own) for the ultimate gingerbread experience.

I can actually smell all three spices—ginger, cinnamon, and clove—equally, and they’re pretty much equal in taste too. I think I enjoy this without any additives, however. When I add 2% milk, the flavours go a little wonky. It seems to bring out the “artificial” in the artificial flavouring. Smells wonderful, but tastes like I added a heap of stale granulated sugar to it (for the record, the rare times when I do add sugar to tea, it tends to be brown sugar).

Further experimentation is in order; but for now, it’s a great gingerbread tea if you can manage to keep the artificially sweet components at bay.

Sort of sipdown. I had two cups worth left and just chucked it, because like the Almond Cookie, it had that typically odd smell that most of these S&V teas have. They just don’t age well.

Just a quick question to all the migraine sufferers out there: do you ever get a runny nose or teary eyes? I experienced another headache episode last night, a few days after the last one, and was even worse this time, with the aforementioned symptoms. Apparently these symptoms are more common amongst cluster headache sufferers (which is even more alarming) but I was wondering if this is perhaps the beginning of a migraine chapter in my life, or even scarier, a cluster headache chapter.

Regarding the tea, I’m kind of a moron for choosing the chocolate chai and not the vanilla. I kept wavering on this one as I was checking out, because I already had so many other chocolate teas in my basket and was afraid they’d all taste similar. What if I didn’t like their chocolate note, which as we know is a possibility when you order from certain companies? My instincts were right and I’m not too crazy over their chocolate note. It’s a little on the artificial side and makes everything chocolate-related taste similar.

The most prominent spices in here are the cinnamon and clove, at least for me. But that pesky chocolate note is right up in the spices’ faces being a super uncool bully. If you like S&V’s chocolate note, then you win, because it is indeed quite noticeable in this blend. For me, though, the more I think about it, the more it tastes like cheap waxy chocolate. Maybe that’s it. It’s not bad in some of the other blends but there’s something about it, especially when combined with spices, that weirds me out.

Should have gotten the vanilla chai. I need some cheese with that whine.

Sip down. I enjoyed the last of this as a cold brew. Refreshing mint, and the classic S & V chocolate note smoothed out here and didn’t taste as generic as it does hot.

This is my library tea. Brings me back to the spring when I was ripping through my first pouch of Della Terra’s Shamrocks and Shenanigans whilst tying up the school year amidst bookery and such.

Interestingly enough, this tastes better in my Timolino. Or maybe I just watched the steeping parameters more closely this time. Or the west coast water is changing the flavour profile. Too many variables at play here. Nevertheless, it’s refreshingly minty, the base isn’t too astringent or bold, and the chocolate is sort of there, sort of not.

Upping the rating from 72 since I realize that I rated previous things higher which obviously aren’t as good. On that note, thanks to the web designers/administrators/Steepster creators for the nifty rating bar which marks off where you rated the previous five teas. Truly helpful, at least for me.

I’m always on the prowl for the perfect After Eight-like tea: super minty with decadent (preferably dark) chocolate. This one has a smooth base, not too bold but not too weak. Great for flavoured teas, I guess. The mint is crisp and refreshing, and there’s an incredibly subtle hint of chocolate in the background, but it’s not as strong as I’d like.

Chocolate Mint is straightforward yet missing that special something that would make the perfect chocolate mint tea. So far, Della Terra’s Shamrocks & Shenanigans (and I’m sure any of its incarnates) is my favourite but I’m still whining and dreaming of something even better.

I WANT to love this, and yet.. it leaves me wondering what it really is. I get some coconut, a strong black base, and something sweet.. but the base is overpowering. I want more flavor like a crème brulée, and less black tea punch-in-the-face.

Fragrant is how I’d describe all of the S&V teas I’ve got, save one or two. This is one of the more fragrant ones, and I must admit that I love it. Sure, I need to package these up with tin foil so that they don’t take over the other teas in my stash, and that’s okay with me. When I open them… aaah.

This tastes more like a creamy vanilla or caramel with a touch of spice than crème brulee, however it’s still delicious.

Crazy, I’m sipping this down already. Between overleafing a bit the first and only time I had it hot, and cold brewing it twice (3 litres total), the 50g are already gone.

This makes a decent cold brew, but not amazing in any way. The creaminess comes out more here but I’m not crazy over the base. There’s some astringency going on and the bergamot note is a little muddled. One less package off my table since I still don’t know where I’m going to store all the new stuff.

Even more of a classic to me is EGC, creamy yet bright and happy. I’m always looking for one with not only a zesty bergamot note, but also an unmistakably silky vanilla note.

This S&V blend is also on the weak side. The dry leaf smells vaguely of bergamot, and I would most definitely not call this a heady blend, which is how the company describes it.

But I will say that the base is smooth, yielding very little astringency. I just wish the actual flavouring was more palpable. I do not detect that much creaminess with and without milk either.

For me, this is a very middle-of-the-road EGC, and while I’ve had better, I’ve also had much worse. Maybe it’ll make a good cold brew.

Last night on NYE, my gut told me to take advantage of Zen Tea’s year end sale, and I ordered 100g of their EGC, which just may be my favourite so far. Part of me tried to resist since I hadn’t tried this one yet, but I’m so glad I listened to my instincts and did it anyway, because this one is a little lacklustre. Perhaps this blend may even benefit from overleafing, we’ll see.