Creme Brulee

mmmm I can’t recall if this was one of the teas I purchased or just one that kittenna let me sample. I know…that’s bad lol In either case, thanks go to her for getting this into my life :) One thing i’ve learned about S&V teas is that they are SMELLY! haha I’ve had to lock all the ones i received into tupperware containers so that they don’t dominate the entire house. However, they also, appear to taste exactly like they smell.

This one, is quite yummy, though I’m not sure i’d call it creme brulee exactly. It’s sweet…and caramelly and there’s a vanilla/custardy sip at the end of this. But it doesn’t scream creme brule to me. it IS however a delicious tasty dessert tea. :)

Oh this is odd. So very odd. It’s buttery in a strange no good way. Plus, I taste chicory or carob. I can’t really say much more about it because I couldn’t take more than a few sips. The remainder is still sitting downstairs waiting for me to dump the cup.

Another TTB sample. This was possibly the one I was most interested in because I’ve had reasonably good experiences with Simpson & Vail teas.

Mm, this smells buttery, creamy, vanilla-y, and caramelly in a burnt-sugar way, all what I would expect from creme brulee. And those are all present in the flavor as well; I particularly like the burnt sugar flavor, which is subtle but definitely present. The black tea base isn’t the star of this show but it has body and makes a decent background. There is a touch of astringency to this that is somewhat at odds with the creme brulee feeling of it; I would expect smoothness and richness, but this is a touch brighter. Definitely a pretty tasty tea and I’m glad I got to try it!

YUM! I absolutely love Crème Brulee, it is my favorite dessert. And Simpson & Vail has managed to capture the flavor of it very well in this blend. This is smooth and creamy … and very dreamy! Vanilla, rich custard flavor, and even that caramelized sugar top … all those flavors are here.

The black tea is a moderately strong black tea, not so strong so as to overwhelm the delicate flavors of the vanilla and custard, but, there’s no mistaking that this is a tea and not a liquified dessert, either. It has a fair amount of astringency, and a touch of bitterness that hits about mid-sip. It is just enough bitterness to cut through some of the sweetness of the Crème Brulee without destroying it.

Very yummy, indeed.

ETA Hey! 100 Tasting notes! :)

Kittenna sent me a sample of this, much appreciated!!

I made some tonight after work and I thought it was pretty good. I’m not quite getting creme brûlée out of it but to me the flavours mesh together to make a totally inoffensive caramel tea.

Not my holy grail caramel tea or anything, it’s not SUPER flavourful, but I’m not getting the cardboard taste others have mentioned and it’s not the burnt type of caramel (despite being creme brûlée flavoured), so all in all I’d call this a perfectly ok cuppa!

Wow, does this tea ever smell potent! It’s rich, strong, caramelly goodness to the max! Almost too intense! Brewed up, it still smells much the same. The aroma is coming off as a bit artificial to me, to be honest, but hopefully that converts to delicious flavours?

Hmm. Well, there’s definitely no shortage of flavour here! However, I’m having a difficult time relating it to creme brulee. The predominant flavour (and aroma) is intense caramelized sugar, which is backed by what is oddly coming off to me as a bit of a cardboardy flavour (which I actually think is the custard). I realize that sounds unappetizing, but that’s how it’s coming off to me. How custard and cardboard are alike, I’m not sure, but I can imagine I’m tasting either when I take a sip! Consequently, I’m not sure whether I love this tea or just like it, but this is certainly enjoyable! And at 3 minutes, there’s a minimum of astringency, which is quite nice.

I suppose I shall see how this does in my travel mug, but I’m excited for another caramelly flavoured black. This is not as good as 52teas’ Cashew Turtle, but the abundance of flavour will probably make it a treat to discover in my mug in the morning (because by the time I get to drinking my teas, I can never remember what’s in each mug!)

No 6 from the TTB-A
The boys & I drank a pot of this with breakfast, & it was tasty, but just not my thing I guess.
My main passion in tea is straight full leaf varieties. They contain so much flavor, so many nuances, that I’m generally very satisfied with them. Once in awhile I head off on a tangent of flavored teas, momentarily enamored with the idea of decadent desserts, but I think perhaps I’m reaching my point of saturation, where flavored teas are concerned. Artificial flavors make my tongue hurt. I absolutely can’t bring myself to drink anything that contains glitter, little silver balls, or other crazy decorative things. Most flavored teas, even the ones with natural flavoring, require some stevia to really bring the flavors out, & sitting here, with a TTB full of dessert teas mainly just makes me want a big mug of ASSAM or YUNNAN of OOLONG or PUEHR. Something that really actually tastes like it’s suppose to.

My apologies to anybody who might be offended by my tea bigotry.

Caramel! Buttery! Sweet! Sugary! All of these characteristics are brought to the table here. The aroma is awesome – just what you would think it would smell like. The taste is medium-strength over top of the black tea. It’s a nicely flavored black. Again, there aren’t very many Creme Brulee Flavored teas, here, and I’m glad S&V came out with one! Another goodie from Simpson & Vail!

Got this in a swap (I am terrible at keeping my swaps straight) at just the wrong time to be able to tear into it right away. But I think my tea cabinet had a plan. It knew that today would be the day my husband would try to get us out of the house on time. It knew that another cold front would be making its way to us giving me a headache. It knew I would have a 2 hour meeting at 9 am that makes me want to bang my head repeatedly against a dull rock.

This tea might be enough to pull me out of this Wednesday slump. Sugary and wonderful this really is like creme brulee in a cup.

What’s nice about this tea is that a little goes a long way. This would have been useful knowledge before I dumped the entire baggy into my teamaker. I tend to err on the side of using too much tea because I like a really strong brew and knew that there was more there than I needed, but not quite enough to get two pots full so I just dumped the whole thing in. Then again there are worse things than having your taste buds smacked on their hypothetical faces by creme brulee flavors so I’m certainly not going to complain. No, instead I’m just going to close this review and click on the ‘add to shopping list’ button, then add it to my wishlist.

I had this last night, and unfortunately I can barely remember what happened five minutes ago, let along a whole 15 hours ago. But I do remember some things about this tea. It was delicious. I did sweeten it, which brought out the sugary creaminess that was layered over the medium bodied black tea flavor. I loved this and will have it again.

Yum. Tastes mainly of caramelized sugar to me, with a decent black tea base that does peek through.

Good hot and lukewarm. I am not a milk with tea person but this is excellent with a little bit of sugar and some cream. Can easily take the place of a dessert without either, but with? Yumtastic.

I bet it would make a good infusion for ice cream or for some mock clotted cream with scones. Ooo… I’m doing a tea this weekend with pumpkin scones. I think I’ll try infusing my clotted cream with this tea.

This would make a nice addition to a Thanksgiving meal.