Featured & New Tasting Notes

Simpson & Vail Advent Calendar: Day 16

Someone over at S&V must’ve been so pleased to realize that Jane Austen’s birthday is in December!

I’m a huge Austen fan and reread the canon every few years, and I was also lucky enough to take an Austen-centric class during undergrad (English major reporting for duty!). Her dry, understated humor and boundless wit always delight me, and I love how keenly (and often mercilessly) she captures the foibles of human nature.

Anyway, I was happy to see this one yesterday, although I only steeped it up this morning (while reading some Ursula K. Le Guin, haha). It’s a pretty sedate black base with bright, cooling spearmint predominating, and then some and creamy, pillowy notes from the vanilla — it’s more marshmallow-y than vanilla-y, in my opinion! I get a smidge of lavender on the back of a sip, but I could honestly do with more.

This is somehow refreshing and cozy, which I appreciate. I might consider purchasing it and adding some additional lavender from my own garden.

Okay, okay, so I had to get the Schitt’s Creek teas from Harney. Mostly for the tins, but I was surprised to find that this blend (for the Rosebud Motel) and the Botanical Blend (Rose Apothecary) are both actually new teas. A lot of times it seems like Harney just packages their existing teas into decorative tins, sometimes with a slight change as in Gingerbread Festival and the Williamsburg Ginger Cake (tastes the same but with orange added).

This one is a cinnamon roll black tea, which I don’t think they have another version of. It’s not at all similar to Hot Cinnamon Spice, as it doesn’t have that intense Red Hots cinnamon flavor. It’s quite mellow, actually. I’m surprised by how much I can taste the icing/glaze part of the cinnamon roll, and then there is a buttery element as well as the mellow cinnamon. It’s nice! A bit thin, so I might try two sachets for a 12-ounce cup next time and see how that goes (normally I do 1 sachet per 8 ounces). Honestly kind of reminds me of a Simpson & Vail tea in that aspect, earthy base and a bit thin ha ha.

(ETA: It looks like Botanical Blend is the same as their Mind Your Body Lemon Balm Chamomile, but still didn’t find anything similar to this tea.)

Devon Bartholomew Advent Day 15

Purple is my favorite color, so I’ve ordered a number of purple teas from different companies over the years. I was excited to see this one in the advent calendar! The leaves were a deep brown color and were tightly twisted and curly, looking more like a black tea. But it steeped up to a pale honey color and sips more like an oolong…super smooth with a nice buttery mouthfeel. The flavor is also oolong-esque: a nice balance of vegetal and mineral. Not my personal favorite profile, but it was definitely fun to try!

Advent Calendar 2024 – Day 15

Ooh, nice to refresh my memory on this one. I know I prefer the Apple Cinnamon French Toast to this, but can’t recall why.

Okay, this really does taste like a coffeecake – buttery, cinnamony, a bit of a walnut thing going on. However, there is little to no apple, and that’s probably why I prefer the other tea. It’s crazy how on-point the walnut is though, even though nuts are not mentioned anywhere in the description lol. Definitely giving me walnut and cinnamon coffeecake vibes!

As for Bonne Maman, today we have Cherry-Pink Peppercorn Spread. Even just eating it plain, I could only taste the peppercorn if I squinted and stood on one leg ha ha. Definitely not noticeable at all, especially if you didn’t know it was there. Maybe there’s a little tingle if I taste it with the very tip of my tongue? Otherwise, it’s a scrumptious cherry jam. Delightful!

Day 11 of the Lupicia advent calendar. I think the pattern here is that the herbal blends are loose and the teas are sachets. There was enough loose leaf to make one mug. I feel like I’m overusing “tart” as a descriptor. I need more precise language to articulate different kinds of tartness. The tangy, almost sour tartness of raspberry is different from the tartness of pineapple, for example. This brews up pineapple-tart and almost too sweet. Tastes exactly like I’d expect from the ingredients!

2024 Holiday tea #9

My holiday tea for today.  Next time it will be done and gone.  BUT I must say, it just warmed my heart when I walked into my corner store for my usual bagel run and I just happened to see that they had a selection of S&V’s tins for sale! They definitely weren’t on the shelf last time I walked by.  It’s a small shop I like supporting another small shop I like and I LOVE that. I have never seen S&V “in the wild” before so I’m very glad of it.  I didn’t ever expect S&V would really be available in shops — that really they would only be available for online ordering?  So it was great surprise to see. :D

Kelmishka Homemade Advent Day 13! The strongest flavor here is the toasted rice, which is really warming and lovely. I also taste a bit of coconut that’s right on the edge. The base is a nice background, creating quite a well-rounded cup of tea. One of the better teas I’ve had from T2 for sure!

Advent Day 13… and it’s a Friday!!!

Happy Friday the 13th! I have no idea who Ruby Granger is, the collaborator for this tea. I had to look on the B&B website to find out she is an influencer on tiktok and youtube. I’m trying really hard to stay off social media because my feed is overwhelmingly negative and it sucks time away before I realize an hour has gone by.

While sniffing this tea I keep trying to find malty notes. I don’t know why my brain wants to go there, but I’m not finding it. I get a hint of creamy coconut and something that makes me think mellow warmth, something cozy. Is this what a warm library smells like? Is this what aging books smell like? Something like chocolate in the scent, but not quite. When sipping I can pick up a tiny bit of the roasty hojicha. It’s very mild. Maybe the tiniest bit of malt at the back of the sip with that aging flavor in the finish. Some sips have a ghostly showing of coconut rounding any edges. It’s funny how much the name is making me try to connect the flavors to an old library. This is a tea I’m having to concentrate on. If I didn’t I think I’d just mindlessly sip it because it is so subtle and there is nothing trying to jump out and grab your attention. It’s a fun experience, but I’m left pondering how I feel about the tea.

Advent Day 13

I love white chocolate/peppermint flavored things at the holidays, so was really excited for this blend to come up. But, the dry leaf stinks like sour gym socks. Smells a bit better when it starts to steep, but still has this lingering sour stench. Yeahhhhh….this is a no. It’s just weirdly sour and footy.

Advent Day 12

Well this is interesting! Kumquat and finger lime?! I have had a kumquat tea from Lupicia once, but I’ve never come across a tea with finger lime! I am partial to finger lime and have had two small trees in pots for years. The larger one that has not been a good producer of fruit is now covered in blossoms at the moment, so I have hope it may be catching up with my prolific tree. We moved in the fall, so perhaps it likes the new yard better. I also grew up with my grandma having a kumquat tree in the back yard and often snacked on those as a kid.

This has a light juicy citrus taste. The first couple of sips were powerful and then the tea mellowed out or maybe it was my tastebuds that did. I think I can pick out the sweetness and flavor of the kumquat peel mixed with the flesh of the fruit, but it lacks the tang the flesh has. The finger lime flavor would be hard to differentiate with a regular lime. The difference is the fruit filled sacs inside the fruit are round balls instead of tubes with tapered ends. I had to look up what marula is… a fruit from Africa. Finger lime from Australia, kumquats are native to China… that is three continents. Not sure where the lemon peel and green tea are from to make the namesake five continents, but I like the concept. This is a nice enough cup that I’d try again, although I’d love to try it cold steeped if I came across it again.

knittingopera Swap Advent Calendar 2024 – Day 11
Theme: Fireside Glow
My pick: London Afternoon from Murchie’s

Ooh, an unflavored tea today! I like smoky teas, but I don’t tend to reach for them, so it’s always nice to have one once in a while. This smelled very smoky dry and steeped, but the flavor surprised me. It does have that savory lapsang smoke to it, but it’s actually a bit in the background compared to the other black teas. Mostly I taste the smooth and earthy Chinese black tea, and then at the end of the sip and in the swallow, the savory smoke comes to the forefront. There’s a lingering smoky finish as well.

A very pleasant blend, and perfect for a Chinese black tea lover like me! I bet it would be lovely with a bit of maple syrup and milk as well.

Our Bonne Maman jam for today is Pineapple-Yuzu Spread. I admit, I didn’t notice much yuzu here, but I didn’t care because I love pineapple! This tasted like sweet pineapple – a bit too sweet, really. I think a bit more tang would’ve been nice, and maybe that was their intention with the yuzu?

Advent Day 10

I love the chocolate mint combo in tea. One of my early gateway loose leafs was a Teavana mint chocolate blend. It’s one of the flavor combos that I find hard to pass up. That said… this was the blandest mint chocolate blend I’ve encountered. The flavor was so weak it was like it had already been steeped a couple times. It was murky with a hint of mint. I couldn’t even drink the whole cup. Hard pass.

2024 Holiday tea #6

I always thought this tea was only “okay” but it landed in my cart so I must like it more than I think! I had to look up what chestnuts taste like and the internet told me “bitter”… that is, until they are roasted chestnuts and then they are “sweet”. So in that case, I think this tea is 100% accurate. It’s very sweet, almost like caramel, with a hint of something nutty. However, I do think that the previous iteration of this blend I had was a little bit more noticeably nutty and not mostly sweet. That nutty note was why I thought it was unique, so it’s lost a bit of that. I do crave it sometimes, so I’m glad to restock it. Maybe it will appear in the advent for some of you to try?

ADVENT DAY 10, tea 3/3

Absolutely agree with Kelmishka who wrote 3 years ago that this is 100% buttery red rooibos. Probably the rooibos base is better than hers, as it was quite smooth and woody a bit, not syrupy at all. Sadly there was nothing that I would expect in popcorn named blend.
Fine, but nothing I need to try again.

S&V Advent Day 8! The base turned out a bit harsh for me, even steeped properly. I taste the fruitiness that reminds me of dried strawberries. Nothing tastes like chocolate or cream. It’s just a pretty basic strawberry green tea. I left it in the fridge overnight and thought it tasted better in the morning. Still not special, but serviceable.

Advent Day 9

Honestly I anticipated strongly disliking this, but it’s actually kind of nice? The walnut aroma is really intense, but softens a bit in the flavor. It really tastes like some kind of caramel walnut dessert bar.

Advent Day 7

Not a black currant fan (with the exception of Ribera). It generally has a cat pee quality that I just can’t get past. This falls into that category. Bleh.

Sydney is a 9-year-old (coworker’s daughter) who oozes with energy and affection. She trick or treated my office a few weeks ago and walked out with a bundle of my tea bags after a lovely chat about favorite varieties. She has recently been inducted as an Official Taste Tester for the Turkey Creek Tea and Cocoa Society. I made her a certificate and everything.

Today, her mom brought me a handmade-by-Sydney card and a box of these really nice tea bags from their last visit to family in Kenya. All bass notes, no brass or tenor, with dark malt and something vaguely fruity hiding at the bottom of the cup. Just what I need to keep me focused on a morning when no fannying about is allowed.

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 6

AJRimmer is really spoiling me with this swap — I’m getting to try so many new-to-me brands I’ve seen on Steepster over the years but haven’t ordered from! And I was very excited to see this one; this flavor profile is right up my proverbial alley.

It’s giving me hot buttered rum vibes, but if you made it with bourbon and added some butterscotch sauce. Maybe a little too much butterscotch — it’s definitely heavier on that element. I like the rooibos in the background, but I’m not getting much of the pu’erh!

My second steep of this one was lighter on the butterscotch and just a lot gentler overall. The corn kernels (!) came through more strongly, probably because they’d been soaking in the damp tea leaves for an hour before my resteep! :D

Advent Day 4

I know this would probably be better iced, but I just don’t feel like making an iced tea. It would also be a weirdly tiny cup based on the amount of tea provided in the advent…so hot it is.
I’m glad S&V has been using green rooibos rather than rooibos in the advent blends. Not a fan of rooibos, but I can handle the green variety.
Smells odd when it’s brewing, but I actually really like the flavor. Not sour, but has a pleasant authentic strawberry flavor.

2024 Holiday tea #2
MMM… had to pick up this new holiday tea from S&V.  I was hoping it would fill in a bit of my tea collection for Marketspice’s Cranberry Creme (though I suppose I could have just bought that one).  And it kind of DOES taste a bit like that.  It’s definitely got a sweet fruit flavor and a bit of a cream flavor.  I wouldn’t say it’s as tart as cranberry should be…  Maybe just a very tiny hint of cocoa. The second steep wants to prove me wrong, and the cocoa takes over while any cream and cranberry takes a backseat. I think it would have been even more interesting if the base black tea was more unique. And just wish there was a bit more obvious cranberry flavor.  This is certainly a welcome addition to my holiday teas.  OH and I went with the idea here from a couple days ago and went ahead and put my holiday teas that I have around me into an empty tree shaped tin I just happened to have lying around.  This is making these teas feel extra festive right now. :D
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 22 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min

Advent Calendar 2024 – Day 5

Sigh, Simpson & Vail, why you gotta include such boring teas? Am I the only one who doesn’t like it when companies have super basic teas in their advents? Like, at least have the French vanilla chai instead. Anyway… At least it’s early in the advent I guess.

This is fine. I am personally not a fan of chai with spice flavoring. If it’s a chai with other added flavors, like vanilla or fruit or something, that’s fine. But to me, if you need to add spice flavoring in addition to the actual spices, you’re doing something wrong lol. It just makes it taste like something else other than chai, I guess. I like that this has anise seed in it, and I’m getting a nice anise flavor, but not a fan of all the added flavorings (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove).

For jam, today I have Purple Fig-Cinnamon Spread. I love fig, so naturally I adore this one ha ha. So rich with the right amount of sweetness and big chunks of fig. The cinnamon is actually fairly subtle, so the fig still gets to shine! :)

(originally posted under their normal Chai, but noticed after reading the ingredients listed on the advent that this was actually their Organic Chai.)

ADVENT DAY 5, tea 3/3

Oh dear, this one sounds fancy! Used all 5 grams in one western session; using only 80 °C water.

The dry scent and liquor scent is the same. Puffed rice / corn cakes, rice krispies, and so on. Naturally it reminds me the sticky rice oolong I had this year. It was very light in flavour as well as in the colour. Less vegetal than that oolong; more of the rice aroma here.

Delightful and probably a tea that I would buy for further experimenting.

Kelmishka Homemade Advent Day 5! The name of this tea sounded like it would be best cold, so I’m drinking this cold with milk and sugar. It’s nice! I taste a lot of cream flavor along with a little berry in some sips. I did try it hot, and it’s much better cold. I always enjoy trying a new S&V tea! Apparently this has cocoa in it, but I don’t taste that.