Simpson & Vail

Home – 9:00 PM

Trying another one from my recent Simpson & Vail order. I wanted the advent box and it seemed silly to pay $15 or whatever for shipping, so I just added a few flavored black teas to reach the free shipping threshold.

Yum, this is tasty. It reminds me of those little almond cookies with the almond on top that they have at Chinese restaurants. The main flavor is light and buttery cookie – similar to a shortbread. There’s a nice creamy almond nuttiness as well. It could also be an almond croissant or other pastry.

My only complaint is the same as the Apple Cinnamon French Toast – it’s somewhat weak, and I can’t taste the base tea at all.

I’ll have to tinker around with water temperature and steep time to find the best combination for these Simpson & Vail teas.

This sample came from my swap with NayLynn. Two of my favorite flavors, almond and cookies! Visually, the tea is quite encouraging. There are nice big slices of almond and those cute feathery red flower petals. It smells very nice too! Very sweet and rich and buttery, like a shortbread cookie. Exciting!

Wow, the steeped tea smells very buttery and rich as well, and I can pick up on some sweet almond notes. Hmm… Taste-wise, this is pretty good but nowhere near as amazing as the aroma. The rich, buttery, shortbread-like flavor is there. There’s some nuttiness, but to be honest I was hoping for more of an almond extract flavor. To me, this is more like a Shortbread Cookie tea, and unfortunately the base is not to my liking. It’s kind of earthy and it’s adding a touch of bitterness even though I only steeped for 3 minutes.

Sipdown! (41 | 318)

Trying to finish off some of these holiday teas because I feel silly keeping them around all year long… And I have several S&V teas in small packets like this one, so they’re good candidates for easy sipdowns.

This is better than I remember. There’s a nice combination of gentle spices and deep, rich molasses notes. It does bring to mind a gingerbread cookie. The base is just okay, but it’s not offensive and doesn’t detract too much from the gingerbread aspect.

I don’t generally crave spiced teas, so I probably wouldn’t order this for myself. Plus I prefer the Harney version to this one, I remember it having more of a buttery cookie feel.

Another holiday tea from my recent order!

This one is fairly good, much better than the Nutcracker black tea. It has a nice cookie flavor to it, and notes of molasses and soft spices. The base is a little woodier than I would like, just like the other blend. It dominates a bit at the beginning of the sip, but then the sweeter desserty notes come out and it’s a lovely cuppa.

I’ll have to experiment more with steeping time for these teas to see how I can minimize the woodiness. I don’t mind woody tea, but it just doesn’t go well with gingerbread cookie!

Simpson & Vail Advent Calendar – Day 9

(originally written November 9th)

Another spice tea… I can see I’m going to be extremely sick of clove by the end of December. XD

This is rather mild and inoffensive. The base tea is smooth but doesn’t have a lot of flavor. There’s clove and cinnamon, and perhaps a little bit of biscuity goodness.

Not terrible, just not special either in my opinion. I was hoping for more cookie notes, similar to the Snickerdoodle Rooibos from yesterday. Needs more cookie! :D

This one came from NayLynn! I’m not a huge fan of gingerbread, but I do like it, and I’m always tempted by any tea that claims to be a cookie or cake. I guess I’m just a dessert kind of gal! This tea is a mix of small, very dark leaves with little chunks of dried ginger root and cinnamon bark, and a few whole cloves. Dry, it definitely smells sweet and similar to gingerbread.

Mm, this tea has a very comforting aroma. There’s a lot of ginger and clove smell, but it’s also somewhat sweet from the cinnamon and possibly vanilla? My cup is pretty mild in flavor, but that was what I intended by steeping for only 3 minutes. I find chai to be overpowering if I try to drink it plain after steeping longer. This definitely reminds me of gingerbread without the sweetness. I’m not a ginger lover, but the ginger here is mellow and just spicy enough to remind me of the holidays. I bet this would be fantastic with cream and sugar. :)

Being that Root Beer was the first tea I tried from Simpson & Vail and I was so not in love with it, I figured it only appropriate to follow that one up with another by the same company that I was more likely to enjoy. So, I chose this one. (Thanks again to NayLynn for this one)

Round 2 with Simpson & Vail is more pleasing but still not a home run for me. I can taste the chocolate, and it does taste like brownie chocolate as opposed to chocolate bar chocolate. I feel like I’m missing cinnamon, though. It just seems like it’s lacking something and isn’t quite as strong as I would have expected from the fact that I could smell it even through two sealed bags. Hmm…I have one other sample from Simpson & Vail to try. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m not quite sure why I wanted to try this one so badly, seeing as how I don’t actually like root beer all that much. But, I was fortunate enough to receive a couple different versions of root beer-flavored teas from NayLynn and I was excited to try them all.

This one was so not for me. Now, let me be clear—it tastes very much like root beer. Too much like root beer. It turns out I like root beer even less when you warm it up and take the fizz out. Good to know. Not rating this one.

Bit of a sad sipdown for this one. I fully intended to purchase more, but sadly Simpson and Vail seem to be out at the moment. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on more soon because this is really just a delightful CTC Assam. Simple and malty. Not much else, but sometimes that’s just what you need.

Sipdown 19/75

Big thanks to Ost who sold me this from her stash sale.

Usually I brew these types of teeny tiny CTC teas to go alongside super sweet or rich foods. The astringency really cuts through and stands up to those types well. Rarely do I bother with them on their own. Tonight I wanted something to go with my bar of Ghirardelli Cabernet Matinee dark chocolate which, while divine, is a bit too rich for my blood. I dug this out, brewed up a cup and then… promptly forgot about it. I usually brew CTC teas for 2-3 minutes max, but this one ended up well over that. Surprisingly it was barely bitter and was positively sublime with my chocolate.
This is pretty much just malt in a cup with a touch of astringency and a barely noticeable smidgen of fruitiness. Delightful really when you just want a hot hearty cup of something that screams tea! I’ll be adding this to the ever-growing list of teas to stock up on when I place my next S&V order. Very good for what it is.

Tea and Chocolate TTB

Backlog from last night.
This is a combination of green Rooibos, coconut pieces, and little red flower petal. It smells like coconut, like real coconut, it smells good. I’ve only had green Rooibos once or twice before, and now I’m trying to figure out why. It is so much more approachable and friendly than it’s red brother.

Steeped at boiling for 5 minutes. It tastes like I’m chewing on a coconut chip piece. Sweetening it tastes less raw, and more baked and creamy. And it lingers nice and long in the after taste. This is a really good last tea of the night to settle in and go to sleep with.

Tea and Chocolate TTB

I was really craving sweets this morning, and trying to be a good girl I decided to dig through the T&CTTB instead for something yummy. This smelled delicious so it won out. Too lazy to look up the parameters for this I just went with a typical 1tsp, boiling, 3 mins approach. Seems to work smashingly with this tea.

This is one of those teas that builds as you sip. First thing I noticed was the way this sort of coats your mouth. It felt almost like I was eating melting chocolate, the mouthfeel is so spot on. There’s a nice almost malty base and a hint of chocolate in the first sip. But each sip brings forth more sweet decadent chocolate and smooth buttery caramel. By the 3rd or 4th sip I was in heaven. The more I drank the faster it seemed to disappear.

This also held up well for a 5 minute resteep.

I had the best mail day today. Cameron mailed me a huge package of surprise tea! It made my day. I also got a TTB, so I have a lot of sipping to do.

This is my first Simpson and Vail tea, and I love it. It went straight on my wishlist. It’s gingerbread in a cup. Strong and full of yum.

This tea is decent but not great. It is sweet and it has a lot of rooibos savory flavor. You can definitely taste the rooibos in this tea. There is the strong flabor of berries in this tea. There is also a twinge of artificial flavor to this tea. I am not sure if the flavorings are all natural. Sometimes artificial flavors are good, sometimes not. I don’t think I would buy this one again. I won’t throw it out though. I picked it tonight because I am again avoiding caffeine having to be up not long after some people on steepster stop drinking tea for the night, too early.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 5 min.

Picked this one tonight because a: I remember liking it and b:I am again avoiding caffeine. This is a nice savory rooibos from Simpson and Vail. The lavender and rose give it a savory character. It has rose hips in it as well but that is a subtle fruit and it doesn’t provide much sweetness. Still, it is a tasty tea for a rooibos. Compared to savory rooibos tea it is excellent.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 5 min.

I taste all the appropriate flavors: Caramel, Chocolate and Coconut. This tea has a great aroma while sipping and round feeling in the mouth. (round?) guess that it feels well balanced. The black tea is not overwhelming the dessert-y feel of the tea. I can sense the Simpson and Vail quality that is usually a part of their lovely teas. This the kind of tea that I love. Wish I had more!

Bought a one ounce sample of this with my last order. This is particularly good. It brews up to a nice floral tasting cup with just a hint of bitterness, that characteristic oolong flavor that can be bitter. The dry leaves smell amazing on this tea, very floral. This is a tea I find myself wanting more of. Simpson and Vail does not get much press on Steepster but I am a big fan of their teas and especially their prices. Their teas may not be quite as good as Butiki, but their prices are far better. There teas may be half as good as Butiki but that is debatable. What is not debatable is that their prices are less than half that of Butiki. For good value priced tea Simpson and Vail is hard to beat. I have never gotten a true low quality tea from them and I have always gotten a good value.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 2.5 tsp leaf and 175 degree water for 2 min.

My first few infusions of this tea left me wanting a bit more from it. It came off as weak, astringent and pretty boring overall. After quite a few tries I’ve found that using 1.5-2 tsp per 8oz and steeping for no more than 3 minutes actually produce a nicely drinkable cup if you aren’t going to add any additions. As this is supposed to be taken with heavy cream and sugar I understand that there is a need for it to have a good bit of astringency to balance those additions out, but it isn’t pleasant if you’re drinking it black.
I probably won’t reorder since I don’t like to add anything to my tea, but I’m happy I got to try it. Over-leafing it a touch it brews up a full-bodied malty tea that’s a great choice for cutting through the sweetness of desserts.

Picked this one tonight because I am again avoiding caffeine. It is somewhat sweet and somewhat zesty from the ginseng. Ginseng has an interesting flavor to say the least. It is slightly savory in nature but slightly zesty. It has an appealing taste that is hard to describe. Simpson and Vail’s best rooibos teas are this sort of savory rooibos teas. They don’t in my opinion do as well in the category of sweet rooibos.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 5 min.

Today I learn that Assam can go with Mexican food. Or I’m just weird. There was the malty scent when I brewed. The flavour seemed a bit darker than I was expecting, but still good. This might be something used in the breakfast blends.

After a root canal followed by an asthma attack I figured I deeded to detox. Woke up at 5 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Figured I needed to detox so I thought of this tea. It has two main flavors, pomegranite and the burdock root which I don’t know how to describe.

This tea is not bad for an herbal. It has two main flavors. One I believe comes from the burdock root and is quite unusual, not really unpleasant, just strange. The other is the pomegranate flavor, quite nice. I am not sure as to the detox benefits of this tea, I think that it is totally unproven about detox teas. I bought it because it looked interesting.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 2 tsp leaf and boiling water for 5 min.