Simpson & Vail

Sipdown! Once again thank you nicole for this sample. I steeped this one longer than the recommended time and it was a much tastier bolder cup of tea without picking up any more astringency. Nothing i need to keep around in my permanent collection but i wouldn’t turn down a cup/samples of this in the future.

mmmm sip sip sipping through my tea! lol having a good time tonight drinking a few teas and trying to sort out the next few that i’ll work on sipping down (ie that i’v been hoarding with 1-2 cups left…)

mmmm thank you Nicole This is a tasty black. I think you’re right on the steeping parameters as i tried this for about 3 mins and it’s a little light. I’ll have to try again with a longer steep time. :) Still a tasty tea.

Thanks to Hesper June for this one…

I guess like a lot of people I haven’t felt up to doing much with the terrible news today about the Sandy Hook Elementary School. I can only imagine how the poor parents of those children must feel. Indeed it is a sad day for our country.

I felt like hibernating tonight and decided to watch a documentary on Grigori Rasputin. Somehow this tea seemed like the perfect accompaniment; especially as it’s cold and dreary weather today.

This is a VERY strong lapsang and has a heavy BBQ type flavor. Definitely not for the faint of heart but pretty good on a chilly evening. Very strong pine/tobacco flavors. Is there any tea in here? lol… I prefer my lapsangs to be a touch on the milder side but perhaps I will try blending the remainder of this with something? I actually do like this but it is not an everyday drinker for me. Now back to Russian history and may God bless us all…

A complete surprise in the mail yesterday – this tea!
H.J. – now…who…would THAT be? Hesper June – thanks so much!!!

I’m a fan of most of the teas I have tried from S&V…so I was excited to try this one, too!

So the deal with this one is that they combined Lapsang Souchong with Earl Grey! VERY interesting!

Yes…the first thing I could taste was the smokiness of the LS. The product description says ‘mellow’ but I disagree – there is a good amount of smoke, here! After my 2nd or 3rd sip I grabbed the EG flavors, too! Once I picked up on those I was smiling! The bergamot does come thru more as the liquor cools naturally at room temp for a moment or two. It’s not really that the LS and EG are playing tug of war, really, but they sure are playing around to try and flaunt their stuff! The more I drink this the more I like it. But the primary reason I like this is because S&V has ‘balls’ – I think they really got creative and took a risk here and I think it worked out really well for them!

This is a neat offering and a robust flavored tea!

Thank you, Hesper June for sending me a sample of this tea I’ve been wanting to try from S & V. By the way the little containers she put them in are very cute.

So… this is a Lapsang and Earl Grey blend which is interesting, I never would have thought to put the two together. Lapsang is the first thing you notice about this, it is quite smoky. There is bergamot in here but it’s more of a background note. I’m not really a fan of Earl Grey on its’ own but I am liking this. I feel like the bergamot has a slight twinge of bitterness.

This tea is pretty strong and I needed it this afternoon. Today was supposed to be my day for laundry and cleaning, but I think I am catching a cold… fortunately I have plenty of tea and Zicam.

By the way, I did another blog post about Imperial Tea Court if anyone wants to read it: http://sanfrantea.teatra.de/2012/12/07/a-visit-to-imperial-tea-court/

Thank you Momo for this yummy sample! This is good stuff!
I will be doing a full review on SororiTea Sisters soon but let me tell you this one hits the spot and is the perfect tea to have while wrapping holiday gifts! :)

This does taste like a darjeeling. Less dryness and maybe a bit more fruit in the background.

Not bad at all. Nothing I’ll get again, but I’m pleased to have tried this.

Smells malty and slightly fruity. Not sure there I’d say there are any citral tones. Maybe this is another that my palate isn’t discerning enough to fully pick out the flavors in the description. I also don’t see any “white hues” in the leaves.

Definitely a full bodied taste, though I did steep for about 4 minutes as it seemed kind of light at 3 minutes.

Good, but not one that I’ll go out of my way to keep around.

Sipdown, 133. Cold brew. I cold brewed this (and removed the leaves) before I left on my trip, so in one respect it was nice to have some already-brewed iced tea waiting for me when I got back. Also, it happens to be a sipdown. With the teas I brought back plus the ones I got in the mail while I was away, my cupboard is at 133, which is pretty darn good still.

As I expected, this was a delicious cold brew. I think the lychee flavor came out a bit more even, and it was nice and refreshing. Love lychee cold brews, so I will definitely be having those regularly in the next few months, especially since it is stupid hot here right now.

This feels like it should be a sipdown because I just emptied the tin, but I actually have a bottle of this tea that has been cold-steeped in the fridge at home, so I can’t count it yet.

I had a cup of this the other day that I never logged, and it was way more lychee-flavored than this one, oddly. I think I possibly used a bit more leaf than normal while emptying the tin, but not much. This tastes predominantly like the base tea, which thankfully is pretty tasty. Maybe the lychee is overwhelmed by the base tea with excess leaf. But at least it isn’t bitter or astringent.

I really have too many types of lychee congou in my cupboard right now. Even though they are very similar and I really only need one, it’s like rose congou… I can’t help but try a company’s version in case they hold my new favorite. Not to mention I will often request them in swaps because I will probably like them. But I now have a boatload of Harney’s lychee congou, so I need to sipdown the others I have (smaller amounts) and be happy with the Harney until I run out of that one.

This is a pretty decent version. The base tea is nice and malty, smooth but not weak. It’s a light lychee flavor for sure, and I usually like a bit stronger lychee flavor, but it’s tasty nonetheless. I will definitely try this cold brew since I love lychee iced tea.

I decided today would be lychee morning, as I recently acquired a few lychee teas and I kind of want to try them at once. This one comes to me from Rachel Sincere in a swap, thanks for sending it!

I think I’ve only had one Simpson & Vail tea before, but I enjoyed it and they tend to get good reviews, so I am excited to try this one. I love a good lychee tea.

And this is a good lychee tea! Lovely lychee flavor and a nice, robust, tasty base tea. I said on the previous S&V tea I tried that the base reminded me of that of Upton’s Rose Congou, and that is definitely the case here. I find this lychee to be not too flowery, actually. A pleasure to drink, and nice as a slightly more subtle lychee flavor than some others I have tried.

I’m glad to see the tasting notes up and running again. I drank Pumpkin Pie Black again yesterday and enjoyed it even more, so I’ll bump up the rating. The first time I had it, I had the expectation of a stronger, more spicy Chai like tea, whereas this is more subtle, but it is wonderfully flavorful and I kept drinking cup after cup. The key is not to over-steep. I found just under 3 minutes was good.

Currently, on Simpson & Vail’s website, this is named Pumpkin Pie Black, but in their catalog, it is called Pumpkin Spice with the same item number T0694. I experimented with brewing times and preferred 2 1/2 minutes to the suggested 3 minutes. At 3 minutes, it was a little bitter. The spice in this is very subtle compared to other pumpkin spice type teas I have tried-a little too subtle for my taste. I’m still looking for my perfect pumpkin spice tea. This one has a nice taste, but it didn’t “wow” me.

Tea of the afternoon here. I haven’t seen this tea for a while and finally found it in my tea cupboard but there wasn’t that much of it, so this is also a SIPDOWN….

I’ve hardly been buying any tea, I still feel like I have more than enough to last me a year or longer! So maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to stock up when I actually had money although the danger with greener teas is that they will go stale before you’ve had the chance to drink them.

Anyhoo, if you’re looking for a chocolate dessert tea you could do a lot worse than this one. It definitely has a chocolate and caramel flavor, though adding a teaspoon of sugar really beings it out. I’m definitely enjoying it this afternoon, not sure it will be a restock however. I have a few favorites from S&V I’m itching to buy again but this isn’t one of them… tasty tho’

Tea of the afternoon. I hope this doesn’t keep me awake since I’m drinking it in the afternoon and lately I’ve been a bit more sensitive to caffeine. I just had a hankering for something warm and dessert-like and it’s been a while since I’ve had this. Adding a bit of raw cane sugar really helps to bring out the caramel notes in this tea. Enjoyable but probably won’t be a repurchase. I wonder if I can go without buying more tea until I actually get another job…lol

Tea of the morning, I forgot I had this because it was sitting on the back of my tea shelf but I’m glad I found it! This is one of the better chocolate teas I’ve had and there’s a rich base that reminds me of caramel, it’s nice with a touch of stevia.

I haven’t been ordering too much tea this year (I have a lot already) but I did place an order with S & V for some of their holiday teas and dessert teas. I’m looking forward to drinking those soon. I’m rarely disappointed in these peeps.

Having this for breakfast… again!
It’s really more of a dessert tea I guess. This was really nice with soymilk and I might add some sugar next time around. It would be great to find a chocolate tea I LOVED but that doesn’t seem to be happening! This is nice tho’

Tea of the morning – don’t judge because I am having this for breakfast. :)

This does have quite a bit of chocolate flavor in it and I am also picking up on some caramel which is fairly subtle. This is enjoyable with some soymilk and I definitely oversteeped it (because I forgot about it) but it still tastes good to me. I don’t know that I would need to keep this on hand but it’s pretty nice.

Sipdown no. 14 of March 2019 (no. 49 of 2019 total, no. 537 grand total).

Most of the last of this is cold brewing as we speak, with the last couple of spoons as my first morning hot tea.

I just updated my thoughts on it yesterday (the hot version) but I’ll note anything interesting about the cold version later if it’s worth writing about.

Meanwhile, I’m closing in on my stretch sipdown goal for March. One more and I’ll be 3 for 3! And most of these have NOT been samples, which is awesome!

Rethinking my rating on this one, particularly after sipping down the Teas Etc. Summer Currant recently.

This is really heavy compared to the Teas Etc. and this morning, it’s sitting like a rock in my stomach. The flavor is grapey as expected and not bad, but the heaviness seems unnecessary.

Also, as with other Simpson & Vail flavored teas, this has something a little generic about it, as though the mingling that went on in the shipping box is carrying over and flattening the flavor into some common thing that could be a signature if it were only something that was clearly done intentionally.

I noticed the same sort of thing with the Harney fruit blends. They all have a similar base of hibiscus, with a surface of the namesake flavor. But somehow that seems more intentional.

Bumping down the rating.

I meant to record a tasting note for this a while back and I see I never did. I must have been distracted. Probably had some rejection slips pop into my mail box which sent me scurrying to find another market to send a story to. ;-)

I’ll have to go back to it and write a more in-the-moment reflection, but the good news is this is a memorable tea. Even without having tasted it in three months I remember a thick mouth feel and a really nice currenty raisiny flavor over a mild and tasty black tea base. More later, but I didn’t want to leave this one naked. It’s cold out there.

Additional notes: Two teaspoons doesn’t really work for this one. I was imagining a yunnan base or something to give it a smooth chocolate flavor, but the base is more astringent than that. A yunnan base or something chocolatey would have been lovely with this one.