681 Tasting Notes
The few Simpson and Vail teas I’ve tried have all had a sort of artificial, plastic-y scent. This one has that, but it’s super sweet smelling too. I can smell chocolate and caramel, especially after steeping, but in the sip it’s mostly that fake chocolate I don’t like in teas. Plastic cocoa butter. Fjellrev said that this one tastes like it has coconut in, and I have to agree. The sip is dominated by artificial chocolate, and closely followed by a fairly strong coconut note. I’m surprised it’s not actually a coconut tea, because the note is very definitely present. I actually really like coconut teas, so I’m not complaining about that. I just wish it were less generic artificial tasting. Not my favourite, but I’m happy to have tried it. Thanks for this, MissB!
Sipdown 218/399
Preparation
I was craving a Coco Chai Roobios latte from DAVIDsTEA but I didn’t have enough of that one left so I went with this instead. It doesn’t hit the spot in the same way as that does, but it’s still pretty tasty. This one is cardamom heavy with a coconut background. Not much of the other chai spices coming through, which I would have preferred. I’ll probably stick to drinking this regular western style in the future.
Preparation
I like this tea a lot more now than I did when I added milk to all my black teas. With milk the flavour kind of gets drowned out, but plain, it’s deliciously juicy. While it’s still hot there is definitely more of a floral note at the front of the sip followed by the apricot, but the juicy apricot really pops with a pinch of sugar. The Ceylon is coming off as very tart and lemony, and it works well with the fresh-tasting apricot flavour really making it ‘juicy’. I’ve had this for so long because it never really wowed me, but now I can appreciate it more without milk I’m happy to have been able to enjoy it and give this one a good send-off.
From MissB ’s Mystery Box
Sipdown! 217/399
Preparation
Accidental sipdown… I grabbed my final teabag, thinking it was an Earl Grey (I had them both in identical sealed pouches) and realised my mistake after I poured the boiling water over and it turned green. In my defence, it smelled citrusy! It’s a weird mixture of astringent and sour, and I don’t really taste the jasmine at all. Totally my own fault, though. I’ve been trying to sip at it for a few minutes now but each time I do it puckers my mouth up in a really not pleasant way. Think I’m gonna have to dump it…
Edit: I asked my mam to try it, expecting her reaction to the weird sour astringency to be the same as mine, but she… liked it… So the mug didn’t get dumped after all, it’s been rehomed instead. I can’t believe out of all the teas I’ve made her try, this is the one she likes?!
216/399
Preparation
Oh man, my mom loves this one too, especially with boiling water. It always makes me wrinkle my nose when she says that she would rather have a bag of this than the nice loose leaf jasmine sitting beside it in the tea cabinet.
I’ve accidentally dumped boiling water on green tea as well. Glad your mom liked it!
@Leafhopper – glad I’m not alone!
@Eelong – What is it with mothers and this tea? And boiling this tea?! Lol. I’ve been trying to get mine into loose leaf for a while, and while she does drink some of the ones I put in front of her, this is the most enthusiastic she’s been in a while. I just, I give up.
GUESS WHO SUBMITTED HER ESSAY!!!!! I’M FREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! :D
Drank my resteeped cold brew while I was working, and it was way way better. Melon flavour definitely came through much more, and no bitterness. Definitely have to remember to use less leaf next time I cold brew this one.
Preparation
Two matcha lattes today in quick succession, and I’m still tired. Super tasty though. I gulped my first one down in seconds. Hopefully they’ll keep me going for a couple more hours of work before I turn in for the night. Tomorrow is the last full day I have to write my essay, and it’s not anywhere close to being submit-able yet. Down to the wire.
Note to self: try cold steeping this again, but don’t use extra leaf!
This splorfs up so much that the 4 tsps of leaf I used completely filled my 16oz tumbler I used to steep it in. It’s also super bitter, so I had to use Stacy’s old trick and dilute it with extra cold water. The cinnamon and apple notes I love so much in this are present, mostly after the sip, and a jasmine-heavy floral note dominates most of the cup. Right at the veeeery end of the sip, I get just a hint of melon, and it’s intriguing me enough that I want to try cold brewing this again with less leaf to see what I can get out of it. I’ve stuck my used leaf back in for another cold brew tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll get more of that interesting melon note and less of the extreme bitterness!
Preparation
Possibly the best lazy breakfast tea there is. I don’t know if I’ll ever find another bagged tea like it. The Rington’s Connoisseur teabags are also great, but they don’t have anything flavoured like this one. The bergamot is super strong, and it brews up in seconds. I take it with milk, but it’s drinkable without. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t like bergamot, or strong citrus flavours!
Drinking matcha at almost 8pm to fuel my late-night study session, which I’m having to drag myself through at a painfully slow rate. I’ve had a lot of issues lately and a lot of things on my plate, meaning I needed a month-long extension on my final essay for the year. Well, that month is almost up – my essay is due on Monday, no more extensions available, and where am I at? 10,000 words. Yep, that’s right. 10,000 rambling, non-sensical words for a 2000 word essay. Sigh. Why have I done this to myself, you might be wondering? Because I’m a fudging idiot. To make matters worse my grade for the year is secure. It can’t be changed no matter the mark I get on this assignment, but I have to pass each essay to pass the module. I need the lowest pass possible and I’ve been torturing myself with this for 2 months now. I don’t know. I have two more days to trim down 80% of my essay, and turn what’s left into something which makes sense enough to pass. So, matcha.
Send it to me, I will cut it in 3/4 and it will be great. Okay, I am joking only; I wish you a good senses to know what to cut and what to keep. I know that feel, it is usually terribly hard to start even writing but then, it goes so smoothly you pass the mark of lenght and then you just need to cut it down.
Hah, I wish! It’s down to 6000 words now, so making progress. I am a chronic over-writer, but this is by far the most I’ve done.
Best writing advice I can offer—and have probably done so many times to other Steepsters wrestling with novels and term papers: Write something, even if it’s stupid. You can always edit stupid.
Lmao. Good advice! Except I wrote 11,000 words of stupid and had to spend weeks editing it and wondering why I was so stupid XD
