1290 Tasting Notes
Advent Tea: Day 5 from Michelle
My advent tasting notes will be rather sporadic this week due to finals. So sorry about that. I prepared this one according to Michelle’s steeping instructions and added a tiny splash of soymilk to my cup. It’s been a while since I’ve had a CTC tea and this one surprised me. It was so malty and lacked the bite or harshness that has been present in other CTC teas I’ve tried. I was able to get multiple steeps out of this one. Another tasty tea from S&V and one I would add to a future order. If I hadn’t had the chance to sample it I probably never would’ve included it in a future S&V order. Thanks Michelle!
Flavors: Malty, Smooth
Preparation
This one is a nice lavender earl grey to drink with milk. I also often over-steep it and it isn’t a problem. A lot of Adagio’ black base teas don’t seem to be nearly as forgiving as this one. I still need to try it as a London Fog at some point.
Flavors: Bergamot, Cream, Lavender, Smooth
Advent Tea: Day 2 from Michelle
This one was perfectly timed because everyone else in my household has been sick for the past week. My immune system definitely feels like it’s taken a hit but I still don’t have any cold symptoms. (knock on wood) Based on the ingredients I imagine that this would be a soothing tea to drink while sick or even when not. I don’t think you can compare it to Cold 911 though for example. I added a bit of honey to my cup of this one. It has a lovely lemon flavor which is interesting because it is described as having a “subdued lemon flavor”. The lemon on the green rooibos base with a little honey added to the cup makes it more dessert-like. I couldn’t pick out the ginger or the other ingredients really but I have enough for another cup to try and do that. Thanks, Michelle! I can already see a Simpson & Vail order sometime in my future after many sipdowns.
Flavors: Lemon
Preparation
This is the one I have sipped the most and will be included in my next order after many sipdowns (sooo much tea!)
I’d definitely order more of this. The struggle between wanting to reorder favorites and needing to sip down our current tea stash.
S&V is my favorite company, but I’ve somehow never ordered this one! I guess I need to!
Advent Tea: Day 1 from Michelle!
I did drink this yesterday but I am posting the note today because I couldn’t find my computer charger the other day. I love to read so I was excited to see that this is an author-inspired tea blend. I liked this one overall. I could taste the strawberry in it and maybe some of the almond or amaretto flavoring. It was hard to pick out too many specific flavors, but they worked well with the green tea base. Thanks again, Michelle. (:
Flavors: Strawberry
Preparation
I’m supposed to be writing an essay about Little Women right now, so I’m going to take this as a sign to stop procrastinating and get on with it XD
Glad you liked it, I remember thinking this smelled better than it tasted, but was still good.
Nattie: I’m supposed to be writing an essay for my Sociology class right now and I have also been procrastinating. So I’m gonna work on that today haha. Good Luck!
Michelle: Yeah the amaretto flavor smelled stronger in scent and was more subtle in taste but still a yummy tea.
Well, I should study for my ADR exam and instead I am writing notes here, watching biathlon in between, and overall not much happy about reading tanks and containers for loose hazmat.
Thank you! Good luck on your essay too Lexie, and on your revision Martin !
I think my Little Women essay would be entitled, “Ten Good Reasons I want to be Jo.” A while back, I found a very non-Little Women novel she also wrote called “A Long Fatal Love Chase.” How’s that for a departure from genre? (It’s gotten buried in Mount To-Be-Read, but needs to be exhumed.)
@gmathis – ugh, I love Jo. I always wanted to be her when I was younger. I love Laurie, too. He’s possibly my favourite literary male character to this day. My essay is about gender norms in the 19th century, which I’m finding too interesting, hence the writing 4x the word count!
I want to try more of their literary teas, but don’t want the box set since I already own one of the ones they off from it, and some I know I wouldn’t like, so the price makes it too prohibitive. One issue I have with S&V is they don’t offer more reasonable sampling options. I like their box ideas but if you don’t want to try all of those for over 30, it’s not as worth it for cheap me lol. I have some other literary ones to try sometime. Glad you liked this one
This one tastes like an herbal version of constant comment. The orange and spices in this one are balanced. I would’ve expected a concept like this to result in the spices overwhelming the base. The orange is the star in this one and it works. My grandmother ordered a bag of this one and shared some with me. I love that this one isn’t a spicy cinnamon tea. It’s a good one for the holiday season.
Flavors: Orange, Spices
I wish I had family members who shared my interest in tea!
<3
Nattie: Two of my family members only drink herbals or caffeine-free blends. Another one hates tea but will drink Cold 911 or cold teas sometimes. It’s so nice to make tea for others. I get excited when I’m asked to. I hope you have friends to drink tea with.
Sadly I don’t have anyone who shares my interest in tea. Ocassionally I can bug one of my friends into sharing a pot with me, or trying a sip, but they’re always very neutral on it. My parents won’t even entertain the notion of loose leave, even a straight black. We’re English and they are very English in their tea tastes – they buy one brand of teabags and won’t drink anything else. If I ask them if they want tea, they always ask if I mean ‘real’ tea, and they mean the teabags! That being said, their chosen brand it pretty tasty, but I wish they would be more open-minded.
This is your friendly reminder to sipdown some of your coconut teas if you’ve been neglecting them. I think I only have a couple at the moment though. Love this one!
I’m trying to sip down my entire cupboard (my newest teas are a year old and I’m embarrassed by how old some of them are) but I definitely have a few coconut teas in there I’m dreading trying again T_T
I have a lot of teas in general to sip down as well.
I have a coconut green tea that I bought at my very first tea festival almost a decade ago that MUST be spoiled by now… I’m afraid to check…
@Kaylee – at least I’m not alone! I discovered yesterday that one of my teas was 9 years old. I’m going to have to start calling them ‘aged’ at this point!
This conversation makes me feel much better about my tea stash! I think my oldest tea is coming up on 8 years soon.
Lmao @Shae – we need to start a club. Or maybe a support group! :’)
A support group sounds about right, lol
Saw this on amazon fresh and grabbed a box of it because I wanted to re-try it. I’m not sure if they changed the tea or just the packaging. I remember liking it a lot more in the past. It wasn’t as egg-noggy as I remembered it being and leaned more towards cinnamon.
Yikes. Eggnog and tea. Hmmm that would be daring for me!
I hope this is not true for me! I love this flavor – one of my tea guilty pleasures. Saw it in the supermarket and snagged a box, but haven’t tried it yet. I really hope it tastes as good as I remember it!
This used to be a favorite for me — I need to yank out the bags I still have and enjoy them now. If I remember correctly, milk helps.
This is one of my seasonal grocery store favorites too! I think they just changed the box, not the ingredients, but I liked the cutesy old box better.
DEF one of my seasonal “grocery store” teas. I hope they didn’t change the recipe!
I hadn’t had it in years so it’s probably just my opinion of it that has changed somewhat.
All our best to you on exams, and wishes for good rest and peace when you need it!
All the best!
Glad you liked it and for multiple infusions!
Thanks Guys! :) Same goes to you with your exam Martin
I might be a bit late now, but good luck with your exams!
Nattie: Not too late at all. Thank You! (My last exam is on Monday but I’ve got paper finals through Sunday) :)