Simpson & Vail

Holy. Moley.

This tea is GINGERBREAD.

Delicious without sugar or milk, even. The base is nice and strong, and a good backbone for the flavours, but it’s not bitter or too astringent.

Then I added some milk and a small bit of sugar, and OMG, it’s even better.

GINGERBREAD.

The flavouring is super duper strong, and I can definitely tell it’s flavoured, but somehow I just don’t care.

GINGERBREAD.

I’m drinking it out of a fancy tea cup, too. And setting up my new metallic red ereader, that I got by pre-spending Christmas money. Yep.

I think that this tea needs to air out for a week or two for optimum breadiness.

Thank you SO MUCH, MissB, for functioning as a tea mule. It was lovely to meet you today (we need to go have tea!), and I really appreciate the work you put in to organize all this!

Hm. After a good scrub, my teas are still tasting weak to me. Perhaps I’m coming down with something – again? Geesh.

This is tasting thin and less lovely than normal, although I am getting more carrot out of the blend this time than any other time. Also a sipdown, which is sad, because I think I forgot to grab more of this when I ordered the other day.

Also tasting off, and almost a sipdown, so I’m going to go clean out the kettle really well right now, as well as my cups, and see if I can figure out what’s what.

The aftertaste when this cools really is so similar to a carrot cake muffin with icing on top, that I looked around about 30 minutes after finishing this last night, to see where the rest of the cake was!

I get more icing than cupcake in here when I sweeten it, yet it’s still really delicious, and definitely a carrot cake. Yum!

Oversteeped this one too, and it’s better around the 5-10 minute mark, as opposed to the 23 minute mark. Just sayin’.

Still creamy, however it’s lost the carrot cake spices and bready feel.

Maybe I received a reblend, or perhaps adding some sweetener is the way to go with this tea. I’m unsure as to why my rating and enjoyment of this is so much higher than other’s experiences, and that makes me a touch sad. Because this is an excellent tea, and tastes just like a carrot cake cupcake, complete with vanilla icing on top. Maybe even cream cheese icing, depending on the sip. The spices all meld together well… very cake/cupcake-like, and definitely carrot cake. On my must-have-in-stock list now, which again, surprises me considering the low ratings from quite a few others.

I have so much of this that I forget about it, because it’s sitting in a HUGE tin parked under my tea bags and sweetener. So today I pulled it out, because gosh darn it, it’s yummy for when I want something with zero caffeine. A bit too sweet today though, even though the creamy candy cane part was delish.

Wow, it sure does take a while to get through a pound of tea, especially one that’s so light and fluffy… just sayin’.

Ah, yummy Candy Cane. I’m so glad that I bought a pound of you to enjoy whenever I want – I just need to remember you’re there in that huge tin, underneath my other teas-to-drink.

1.5 tsp in 12 oz.

So very excited to pick more of this up at the border later this week or early next, as this is a sipdown! (For now). I grabbed a pound, which sounds ridiculous, however I want it to last until Winter 2014 so that I can order more, then.

As delicious as I find this one, it also seems to work as a great tummy tamer. Yay for dual duty teas!

A pound of this is on it’s way to me. That’s how much I love this. Soon to be a sipdown, unless the package beats me! Also finding that oversteeping makes it less yummy, and I like it better with just a hint of sweetener (stevia).

Oh green rooibos candy cane yumminess, how I love you!

Comforting. Minty. Creamy. Yay!

Must order more of this before they stop selling it for the season! So creamy, so delicious. Interestingly, I found this better at my house than when I steeped it elsewhere.

Brought this with me on my date, so that I could replenish the young man’s stock. He was sick earlier in the week, so I gave him some of my favorite medicinals… straight ginger, Super Ginger (DAVIDs), Turmeric Tea (Phat Long), and Clari Tea (Whispering Pines). He loved the Clari Tea, and said he resteeped the 2-cup pot six times. Whoa! Also shared tonight that I may have ruined him for store-bought tea bags forever. Must admit to a sly grin, there.

Anyway. Shared some of this with the gent while we watched Seinfeld. I forgot how much I loved that show!

As always, delicious.

I must make another S&V order soon, because I’m going through this ridiculously fast. Yes, it’s that good – and even better sweetened. Creamy, minty candy cane, and only lightly minty so that the cream and sweetness shines through.

Had this earlier today, and gave my 5-year-old a sip. He’s recently discovered he loves candy canes, so I told him, “This is candy cane tea.”

“No Mommy, it’s not.”

“Yes love, yes it is. Try it again.”

He giggles. He tries it another two times before I realize he’s playing with me, and just wants to drink all of my tea.

“No Mommy, I still can’t taste it. Can I have some more…?”

My first Simpson & Vail tea! I’m so excited. Can you tell I’m moseying (very slowly) through the Black Friday tea boxes?

Many of the teas are exceptionally fragrant in the S&V order, for those of you who decided they wanted to share with me. Which, by the way, I’ve now packed up all the S&V and have gotten it ready to mail off. Four of you still have other boxes here for me to go through; the rest will get mailed or delivered tomorrow. Yay!

Onto the tea! Really fragrant, smells strongly of minty, creamy candy canes, with an almost medicinal smell to it, perhaps because it’s so strong. Brewing it is divine, and drinking it? Oh. My. Goodness. Creamy, mint candy cane. It’s a dead ringer. Love!

Tea #13 from the Here’s Hoping TTB

This is my first tea from Simpson & Vail, so I was really excited to try it, even though it was a chocolate tea. I’ve pretty well given up looking for a tea with chocolate in it that I like. While steeping, this smells very heavily of cocoa, which gave me hope. My #1 dislike when it comes to chocolate teas are unnatural smelling and tasting chocolate. This ended up tasting a lot like it smells, which isn’t a bad thing actually. I don’t mind the unsweetened cocoa powder flavor, it just leaves me wishing for something a little sweeter. I think this has potential as a tea latte, so if I have time to go buy milk I’ll try that later.

Of my black friday S &V teas, this one was one of the better ones. But still, I could never get it to quite make me dance with delight.
It was a good experiment, but I’m done with it now. Not a repeat.
Sipdown!

I’m almost done with this, which is nice.
I cant get this to dance for me. I’ve tried just about everything, and I admit, this has more flavor than a few of the other S&V teas I’ve had, but I still just mostly want it gone.