Simpson & Vail

September Sipdown Challenge – a tea for which you are grateful

This is not a sipdown. This is a nearly new tin. I forgot what I had ordered from S&V and when I saw this I was really perplexed as to why I ordered it. I am so glad I did. I am mostly grateful to have found teas and tisanes without caffeine now that I have become caffeine sensitive. But I am grateful for this one because most of our caffeine free options are dessert blends or fruity blends and I really needed this for a night like tonight when my clenched jaw has inflamed my TMJ issues and I have a headache.

The others blends were purchased for fun evening tea and cookies or snacks with Ashman, but this one is a cup for quietness by candlelight with the windchime singing just outside my window.

It is lavender forward and the mint is just a slight cooling sensation and doesn’t take over the personality of the whole cup. Mild mint is very soothing and relaxing to me.

Hopefully once I finish this I can go to bed and fall asleep right away.

I bought some Simpson and Vail caffeine free blends for the upcoming fall and winter evening tea times with Ashman. He loves cookies and this sounded like one that woukd go nicely with desserts.

But first – does anyone else have a weird cupboard situation? For a very long time now, years even, I have noticed that lots of my teas duplicate. I tried taking one out of cupboard and it removes both. When I tried doing a rough count of tea on hand and comparing the numbers, they match pretty well. Then I noticed that some of my teas are not listed, but when I have a sipdown and go to the page and remove a tea from cupboard, the number on the cupboard page does go down by one. i have added the four new S&V teas but they do not show up in the cupboard for me even though when I go to their page, it says “added to cupboard.” Mystery.

Anyway, I made this first as a latte and it was such a hit that I wondered if we would like it plain. I was right about Ashman loving it.

Tonight we had a cookie taste off. Ashman wanted Keebler Pecan Sandies but wouldn’t buy them because they were not on sale and we were in one of the most expensive local grocery stores. Daughter went to another store today and they were on sale as well as there being a store brand, so I had her get both and we had a blind cookie tasting tonight. The store brand won! Ashman is happy because now he can have his cookies more often.

We drank this tea plain tonight. I resteeped it so we would have a huge pot. It was wonderful, nice and strong, and the shortbread flavor in the tea just complimented the shortbread style Sandies. It was excellent even without milk and sugar, and indeed would have been too much sweetness for me latte style while eating cookies, although Ashman wouldn’t have minded with his sweet tooth. The caramel is authentic tasting and the hint of walnut gives it depth.

We both loved it and I am really happy with the blends I bought to enjoy this winter. This is one I would definitely repurchase.

ETA: Now that I have logged a tasting note on this one, all my new teas now show up in my cupboard three days after I added them, but the number of teas is unchanged.
It also says that I have made no tasting notes for any of them in spite of this one being written today. Maybe it takes a kong time to catch up.

A nice, malty tea to enjoy with milk and honey to unwind after a rough week!

Sipdown! (35 | 287)

This was a nice enough tea, but I wanted more pear from it. There is a soft fruity note here, definitely more of a cooked pear, and I found the ginger overpowered it and made it difficult to taste. Not that the ginger is incredibly strong or anything, the pear is just a bit too subtle IMO.

Still a tasty tea, but more of a ginger-focused black tea with a hint of pear in the background.

Sipdown! (5 | 257)

So this one was sadly just okay. I actually really like the flavoring they used – it has such a great balance of sweet apple and softly savory sage. The problem is, there’s just not enough of it in my opinion. The front of the sip is almost entirely the black base, which is smooth and somewhat earthy, but nothing all that flavorful. And then I get this really lovely light, lingering finish where the apple and sage poke their heads out.

I tried using a shorter steep to highlight the added flavors more, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. A bit sad, as I would adore this tea if only the flavoring were stronger, but alas, you can’t love them all…

I’ve never been a rose fan but this one pushed my buttons. Enjoyed on Saturday during a readathon. Paired with some cheese and crackers, brewed in a 3 cup pot with two cubes of sugar and one heaping tsp of tea for five minutes. The rose is vibrant and not cloying or perfumey. I am used to London Victorian Fog and earl greys flavored with Lavendar, which this apparently has as a mild background accompaniment but not the main floral star. In this case, the rose is the predominant and it works smoothly and is unique and memorable. Will definitely be ordering more of this.

Sipdown! (45 | 243)

This tea is really horrible… Like, shockingly bad ha ha.

Tastes like a pile of sour, wet-rag peppermint that someone tried to add white chocolate to. Which is bizarre, since this doesn’t even have peppermint leaf in it…
AJRimmer mentioned potato skins, and I can kind of see that too. There’s a certain earthy quality to it.

Just awful, tastes like something that’s gone bad LOL. As you might imagine, sour and white chocolate don’t pair well together… I threw the rest of the pouch away.

This blend is so delightful! Super refreshing and great hot or iced :)

Hmm… I don’t really know how much I really like this one considering I am a bit congested. However, I agree… the only note I am getting is clove. I don’t hate it but it was a little disappointing as I love baklava.

I’ve been loving this blend iced this summer! I have a small tin at work that I drink when I’m here :)

I don’t know how I forgot to add this to my cupboard but oh well! This blend is special to me because the scent reminds me of my Grandfather (he is still with us, it’s not morbid but just nostalgic!). That being said, I have to agree with a lot of the other notes…

This blend is more of a Russian Earl Grey rather than a Russian Caravan. Luckily, I like both. I tend to enjoy smokier teas though I don’t own many at the moment. This blend is a bit bolder than a traditional Earl Grey but I wouldn’t say that it is that smoky. Faintly, yes but it is rather nice.

I still can’t get over the fact that I have never spoken about this tea before! I love this blend and I think that I have been drinking it for around three years now. Yes, because my original start on Instagram and my old blog was back in 2019 and I think I found S&V in January of 2020 so… yeah. Pretty cool. I love it iced, cold brewed, as a latte, or hot with a touch of honey!

Sipdown! (7 | 204)

This one just seemed bland to me, no matter how I prepared it. Very thin and weak-tasting with a bit of apple and clove and a bit of tartness.

Tried the last of it cold-brewed, and I think it’s maybe a bit better, but still quite bland. It’s like a watered-down version of those hibiscusy mulled cider herbal tisanes that you often see around the holidays (from B&B, for example).

Meh!

Cold steeped this one in oat milk overnight, and then added some vanilla syrup.

I don’t generally love rooibos as a latte, but this is delicious. Spot-on for a root beer float, and the extra creamy oatmilk gives it a thicker, more decadent texture. Yum!

Random tea of the day!

Ordered this one because it just sounded so interesting, and I love root beer.

The flavoring is actually spot-on. It’s sweet and spicy and even has a bit of effervescence to it. The rooibos base makes a lot of sense to me, since root beer has a somewhat earthy flavor to it.

Now I’m going to have to try this iced/cold-brewed, and also as a latte… Although I’m not generally a big fan of rooibos with milk, so we’ll see how the “float” treatment goes ha ha.

YUM YUM YUM Only second to Gingerbread Festival by Harney teas… missing the molasses flavor but overall really nice!

Hmmm… this one is rather strange, I’d have to agree with Cameron B, its rather generic and it tastes like… I’d hate to say it but Lipton tea bags? There’s a slight marshmallow note but… eh?

I have to agree with everyone, at first I tried it as an iced latte and adored it, it was pumpkin spice-ish with the burnt sugar element. However, hot it was rather underwhelming. I think the milk and touch of honey certainly brought out the pumpkin flavor.

Hot- 65
Iced/iced latte/latte- 89

Sipdown! (57 | 309)

Finishing off this tea, so I figured I would do a long overdue side-by-side comparison with Apple Cinnamon French Toast. Because, you know, for science! So here we go.

Apple Cinnamon Coffeecake – To me, this one has a much more buttery cake sort of flavor to it, which makes sense given the inspiration. There’s also a strong nutty flavor, reminiscent of walnuts or pecans (though the earthy base makes it veer more walnut to me). I honestly don’t get much of the apple, and the cinnamon is quite light. It does bring to mind a buttery coffeecake with a cinnamon crumb topping, though definitely with some walnuts mixed in as well. “Cinnamon Walnut Coffeecake” would perhaps be more accurate for me.

Apple Cinnamon French Toast – This tea doesn’t taste buttery to me, it’s more on the sweet side, with a noticeable maple-y flavor. I do find a bit more of the apple here, along with a similarly mellow cinnamon note. It doesn’t specifically remind me of French toast, since it lacks that eggy custardy quality. To me, it’s more of an apple-cinnamon-meets-maple-brown-sugar oatmeal tea. Or perhaps even “Maple Apple Crumble”?

Both are tasty. I personally prefer the Apple Cinnamon French Toast, and I think it’s because I don’t find myself loving more heavily desserty teas these days, and the buttery taste of the Apple Cinnamon Coffeecake puts it in that category for me. Would definitely recommend both for dessert tea lovers though! :)

Still have a bunch of S&V teas to get through from my last order. That was in September of last year and there are still several I haven’t tried… Tea hoarder life, amirite? ^^’

So I ordered this one because I was curious how it compares to Apple Cinnamon French Toast (a favorite). That one already kind of tastes like coffee cake IMO, and I find it a bit weird that they have two teas that are so similar. So, you know, for science!

It’s definitely similar, but I feel like maybe the apple is more subtle here? I mostly taste coffee cake, with plenty of cinnamon obviously. It definitely has that buttery quality that reminds me of the crumb topping on a coffee cake. Base tea is a bit musty, which I remember also being a thing in the other tea. A shame that S&V’s black base is so weak, when their flavorings are so good.

I might have to try this and Apple Cinnamon French Toast side-by-side to compare them… :P

In my insomnia induced manic cleaning fit tonight/this morning I’ve been speed drinking my flat teas from my cupboard because if I’m going to recommend them in a series this fall over on instagram, why not try and rate them first lol. Just an excuse to binge new teas before storing them away for a few months.

On to the tea:

This is one of the best rooibos and best blueberry blends that I have ever had. It is definitely blueberry forward with a touch of cakey-ness that is delightful for a night time cuppa. Its got a touch of cinnamon but it’s definitely not spiced or cinnamon forward. It tastes just like blueberry crumble with the yummy brown sugar cinnamon crumb. A definite new favorite!

I agree with what other tea friends are saying about the Terry’s chocolate orange, however I think that the rooibos is more of a Marshmallow like flavor in the mix rather than savory. It’s definitely a darker chocolate flavor but it is rather nice. I know that chocolate flavorings are quite polarizing but this was is worth the try. The orange is on the weaker side but the rooibos makes it like an orange Creamsicle Chocolate orange. It’s a nice blend.

I fell in love with blend last August when CameronB and I did a swap right around the first week of the fall semester. I vividly remember it because I was only a few days in and already swamped with assignments.

As for the tea… it’s just a warm cuppa cozy comfort. I always recommend Simpson and Vail to my friends that are newer to tea because they have so many flavors and types on a college student-friendly budget/price. There’s really a blend for everyone and it’s always so lovely to try something new. I’ve been going there for years and there’s still a ton of blends I haven’t tried yet.

I prefer this blend hot, black, with a touch of honey (usually without it though) just to bring out the maple/french toast flavor a bit more. It’s just so comforting and cozy, it tastes like maple apple crisp to since the apple is the primary flavor. I love it, it’s a stash essential. I’m glad I stocked up on it for the upcoming fall.

Extra info****

My cupboard does not reflect my current sip-down basket. I’m so close to finishing everything that I want to get rid of this summer already. Everything in my cupboard is what I have been gathering (hoarding) for fall. As I go through the summer, there’s a few more teas and essentials I want to grab and all hell will break loose on August 28th (first day of the semester) when I officially break into my fall stash/the currently updated cupboard.