Simpson & Vail

SIPDOWN!

So uh funnny story? I like this better hot haha. Cold brew from the other day and it’s so much better warm.

Wow… i have to say this is a totally interesting tea! I’m not sure it’s something that I would drink often, but man i could go for this occasionally. Not only does it smell intensely like root beery but the taste is pretty damn close as well! I had some of this hot and then it accidently was left to cool right off while i was on a call. I can say, cold, this is VERY much like root beer. Hot, it’s still much like root beer but a little less so. Either way, if you’re looking for a root beer tea, this is it! :)

damn you steepster you ate my note!

I received this in a swap from Jude, I’m not positive this is actually from Simpson & Vail

The dry notes smell cookie like, but only lightly so.
As this steeped I had to sniff around trying to figure out where the baking cookie smell was coming from…. duh, my tea. Even my girls couldn’t believe how much it smelt like actual cookies baking. This is by far the most aromatic tea I’ve ever had.

It’s a little light on taste, only slightly cookie, maybe a bit stale. Could be my steeping I used a little less leaves than usual & kinda forgot about it.
I do believe I have more coming from someone else, so I’ll definitely have to experiment with this one, it’s got so much yummy potential.

ETA: re-tried this, more cookie flavour this time, however still getting the old/stale taste. Still a really great flavour though.

so much for getting around to drinking more of my butiki teas today…oh well! another day! haha finished this up tonight since i am having a bit of a silly evening…dancing around the house and listening to bad pop-y type music!

another sample from cavocorax. Nice to have this back in my cupboard, though it appears that i like this less than the last time i had it. Perhaps Brioche has ruined almond sugar cookies for me :) Still though, nice to enjoy another cup of this as it’s not a bad tea, just not as delicious as Brioche for me in terms of dessert like teas heh

Sipdown! I’m sad to see the last of this go, but at the same time i think i’ve landed on brioche as my dessert cookie favourite tea…for now. This one is satisfying and delicious and i wouldn’t turn it down but it doesn’t need a permanent place in my cupboard :)

backlog from yesterday – this was my other tea to accompany dinner. I wanted to see how close to brioche it tasted, and the verdict is, not really at all haha. I prefer brioche but not by leaps and bounds. It just has a whole cookie feeling going on, whereas this is tasty but not quite embracing the whole feeling of a delicious cookie.

Kittenna! I’m so sad! it’s all gone! SIPDOWN!

So strangely I’m kinda sad to see this one go. I’m not generally a fan of almond flavoured things but this tea is pretty darn delicious. I MIGHT have to have a re-order of this one for those times when i want a tasty dessert.

Finally getting around to trying this one from our order with S&V. I have to say this is also a pretty damn good dessert tea. I’m not overly fond of almond baked goods but i do love me some sugar cookies. The scent of this tea reminds me completly of cookies…sweet and delicious.

Drinking this one is a delicious sweet cookie tea. It tastes like almonds but not, as Kittenna put it, Marzipan. Which is good because i really don’t like marzipan. I think this one is higher up on my list than the cinnamon chocolate brownie but I still prefer the uh other baked good tea whose name i can’t recall from S&V that we picked up. I find this tea sweet, without sweetner, but not so over the top that you want to find something less sweet to eat with it. Another good dessert tea from S&V encouraging me to order a bunch more :)

I had to order from S&V since they had some cocoa shells in that I’ve been waiting for! I had this tea six years ago and loved it. But of course, harvests change and this one is much much different. And not for the better, but that would have been very difficult to do as the harvest I tried was so delicious. I do remember from tasting notes that this was an ever changing finicky tea every time I steeped it up. But this is so much different now. It tastes like a very weak Ceylon and I really don’t like Ceylon. So even if I hadn’t had this tea before in a previous harvest, I really wouldn’t like it now, so it isn’t a matter of disappointed expectations. It certainly doesn’t seem like Yunnan. Of course a tea would change over harvests and years but this is a BIG change. The rating would now be a 65.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug// 10 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep

Additional notes: sipdown! (I have to work on a ton of sipdowns..one a day for all of December wouldn’t be enough but at least 1/4 of my cupboard only has a teaspoon left of each tea.) This was nice, just not as nice as last time. The flavor seems to change with every cup and even every sip! It’s tough to pin down.. I was noticing the difference in flavors last time I had this tea as well. Sometimes it wants to taste like a Darjeeling, sometimes it’s chocolatey. This time was lighter flavored than last time though. And since I had this tea the last time, I’ve definitely grown to learn that the gold Yunnan tastes like honey!

Thank you so much for this one, Nicole! Only Nicole and I have reviewed this one so far? Hmm. Yunnan is my new favorite… but I’m not sure if there is a strict flavor difference between the golden yunnan and the black yunnan. After steeping for four-five minutes, this one is medium bodied. It tastes more like a ploughed field of hay (in that delightful tea-like way) than anything chocolatey. It has a tiny bit of maltiness to it, but the flavor isn’t dark and deep enough to have too much of a malty flavor. Are these the differences between golden and black yunnans? I don’t know. I just found out today that not all yunnans are golden. The steep color is a lovely shade of amber, after all!

The second steep at boiling for six minutes was certainly more like my favorite tea flavor.. deeper, chocolatey and maltier. So you can certainly tailor this (or any tea, really) to your tastes. So the first cup had the lightness of a darjeeling, but the second had a much stronger flavor. I like the differences! And I guess I answered my own question.. the black yunnan can certainly still be deep and malty — it’s all in the time and temp.

This was good – and for me that is saying a LOT considering it is a rooibos. The chocolate note was lovely and it did have that Red Velvet cake flavor and feel to it. I would not reorder it but I don’t care for rooibos so thats the only reason.

Did two weeks make a difference? today’s cup was not so bad!! of course, in anticipation of how bad it could be, I added a teaspoon of sugar along with my milk.
Also, there was a good sized chunk of cocoa in my spoon, perhaps that is what spiced up my cup!
Bumping the rating a bit.

Bleh. I agree with Sil and Kittenna, something in here is just not right. Sadly, I can’t put my finger on what!
A little too much cinnamon perhaps? Either way, I am definitely not getting brownie. OR chocolate. Alot of cinnamon and what reminds me of chicory, but doesn’t quite have the same depth. I really dislike chicory and carob (which I often mix up). Oh and the extreme astringency is quite annoying.
Milk and sugar helped some. Oh well. I got through my cup ok. I mean, it isn’t that this is a “bad” cup, but other reviews here are so complimentary that I have to wonder if Sil is right… did we get a messed up batch??
Thanks for the hookup Kittenna!

Sipdown! Used to have more flavour, but this was still fairly tasty. I definitely prefer strawberry blacks to greens. This was nice and creamy strawberry; a bit astringent as I oversteeped, but that was definitely my fault. Would likely have this one again.

Backlog! I still do enjoy this one. It has a delicious creamy strawberry flavour to it that’s very appealing :D

I’m fairly sure that this tea is rapidly losing flavour; I suspect it was a bit old to begin with, and now is rapidly going downhill. I have a few cups of it left, and will try my best to finish them off quickly! It’s certainly not bad, and the creaminess/cupcakey aspect is still present, but the strawberry flavouring is quickly disappearing. Although I apparently only have one previous tasting note for this, I’m pretty sure I had it in a travel mug at one point too (but I’m bad at logging those sometimes), and it was fairly tasty, so hopefully I can use it up quickly that way. Basically, travel mug blacks have only two requirements: no astringency, and some sort of tasty-enough flavour, and this one in its current state still satisfies those requirements :D

. My goodness, I am massively terrible at keeping teas straight after brewing…..

Anyhow! Thanks to momo for a generous sample of this one!!

This is a really delicious tea. All cupcakey, bakey goodness with a creamy, strawberry sweetness. I could be convinced that I’m drinking mushed up infused cupcakes, that’s for sure! Delicious.

Having another small cup of this before sending the rest off in a swap. Still really like this as a cold fruity brew, though its not specifically “gooseberry” persay.

OK folks. this tea? this tea needs to be drunk as a cold brew. ‘nuff said. I had a chance to drink the cold brew of this that’s been in my fridge for a bit and it is delicious! It’s everything that i wanted the hot brew to be that it isn’t when it’s hot. I’m not bumping the rating on this one because I feel like a good tea should be drinkable both hot and cold, but the rest of my sample from Indigobloom is now earmarked for cold brew only. Cold, it’s at least a 75-80 :)

Thank you Indigobloom This one comes across as that random “berry” flavour that some teas have, though it’s leaning towards almost being gooseberry. There’s a bitterness at the back end of this that reminds me of rind. I’m trying this cold brewed as well over the weekend since I’m thinking that might be the way to do this one. Not a bad tea, but i think i prefer S&V’s baked good teas :)

meh. I’m not impressed with this one. Tried it again and today it’s a bunch of cinnamon with come chocolate in the background. I think i’d like this a lot more if there was no cinnamon. That being said, I also much prefer the other baked good teas from S&V. Sipdown of this since i’m going to pass the rest of this off to my friend who’s been bringing packages up to me from the US :)

Hmmm I think that either we got a bad batch of this one or it’s just not up my lane. I’m getting the cinnamon in this one but not so much with the chocolate or the “baked goods” kind of taste. I’ll have to give this one another shot when i’m at home and can focus on it (and i’ll check the resteep out tonight as well) but it’s nothing i need to drink again so far. I much prefer the other teas we picked up from S&V so far. This one is just kinda…meh in terms of the flavouring.