Simpli-special

A beautiful, clean tasting white peony, naturally sweet, slightly fruity with hints of peach and melon, and just the tiniest bit of woodiness, light but still with some depth. Could drink this all day, very refreshing, uplifting and more satisfying than any silver needles I’ve tried.

forgot that i had this one last night as well. another sipdown but to be honest i recall nothing about it last night beyond wanting sleep. lol

sooo i shouldn’t be drinking tea tonight. I’m so exausted that i can barely think straight. Had a small cup of this one courtesy of kittylovestea Looking forward to meeting this tea again when i’m not so sleepy…

…also? 282 teas…crap. lol

This is pretty nice when you’re sick! I was hoping the licorice would soothe my throat, and the caffiene would help keep me alert.

So far so good, even though I over-steeped it! It’s mostly herbal anyway.

I can’t quite figure this tea out. It’s a really nice blend – fruity and slightly creamy but it’s not exactly strawberry :) It’s more of a pineapple, type black that’s not exactly pineapple either. just that sweetness that comes from pineapple. At the tail end of the sip there is almost a hint of strawberry cream but then it slides away.

thank you kittylovestea for sending this my way! No steeping parameters on the bag so i went for 3 mins to see how that worked. I think my taste buds are on strike because this tastes like chocolate to me. lol I get a bit of strawberry from this but mostly it tastes like a chocolate cream tea. I’ll have to play around with this…it’s pretty darn tasty but it’s uh not really strawberry to me lol

sipdown! thank you kittylovestea i played with this one a little more today to see if i could improve upon the taste. Sadly it really is just more like a smooth black tea with a bit of flavour that doesn’t speak to me. I added a splash of sweetener and milk which helped a little but i’m sure this isn’t what kitty has experienced with this tea. ah well! at least i tried!

thank you KittyLovesTea for this sample!

Sadly i don’t get quite the sample depth of flavour that you have, though in the after taste of this one i can almost taste what your tasting notes seem to reflect. It’s a fantastic dry looking tea with big cherries and a great looking base. However, even after steeping for a longer time than i normally would for most blacks, it’s more like a nice smooth black, than a flavoured tea. I have a bit more left to play with so i’ll see if steeping it for even longer helps! That being said, in the tail end of this sip there is a distinct chocolate cherry taste that is almost within reach..

Another first for me! Well, a couple in fact. I’ve not tried any compressed tea yet, or anything remotely close to a Pu-erh. The compressed tea is in the form of an acorn cup, complete with little dimple on the end. I’m not sure if this is intentional or because of machine production?

The liquor produced is a light brown, and it smells of earthyness with a hint of wood. The taste is quite refrshing, very light with no real after taste. I can just taste something sweeter in the background. I’m wondering if it will come out in later steeps? I will find out!

Update: Second steep produced a liquor which was slightly redder (not sure if that was to be expected). The smell changed quite a bit. There was a definite sweetness to it, not floral at all but fruity. Reminds me of raisins quite a bit.

The taste wasn’t as sweet though. I could sense it in the background when taking in the tea, but it wasn’t in the body. There were some more hints of it when the taste was going. The taste was still earthy, but there wasn’t as much wood to it this time. Still very pleasant, and did leave my mouth feeling quite refreshed. Easily got another two steeps from this one toucha!

Third steeping! This time the taste reflects the sweetness in the aroma. A nice blend of fruit and earth. I can see why some discard a number of steepings to suit their palette as the taste changes dramatically. Personally, I have enjoyed it all so far.

This tea has a sweet and nutty aroma, with just a hint of smokiness. The combination comes across as a bit buttery. The wet leaves are a dirty green colour, and the liqour was amber, darker than I expected.

I must admit that the aroma made me think this would just be an average green tea, however I was definitely wrong! The taste is something quite different. I’m finding it difficult to describe really. It’s not as nutty as I expected, and although there is a sweetness to it it’s not like the aroma. There is a taste of smoke though. It’s not as in your face as a Lapsang Souchong, more subtle and well balanced. A strange buttery smoke mix that’s surprisingly refreshing.

I did think that I wouldn’t find anything special in this leaf considering the aroma, but was thankfully proved wrong. However, it doesn’t stand out as much as the Royal Ceylon Gunpowder I tried last week. It’s definitely higher on my list than some green teas I’ve had, but it’s never going to compete for top spot.

Mmm, I enjoyed this tea quite a lot! Whilst it is a green tea, it struck me as something half way between on the first steep.

The dried leaves, as expected, are rolled in tight balls. There is a real mixture of greens in this one, dark to light in colour. There wasn’t a strong scent when dry, but when wet you get a slight earthy note. Again, when steeping the aroma isn’t particularly strong.

The wet leaves become more vibrant as usual, but I noticed that there were flecks of rusty, ruddy brown leaves now.

As far as taste goes, this was a real change from the green teas I’ve been having this week. It is difficult to describe, other than it’s definitely got some oak and earthyness in there. It also tastes like a good quality tea. It immediately grabbed me and made me think this was something a bit special. I’m really pleased I got to try this.

Second steeping lost the oak as the main body, and balanced itself with the normal slight floral and sweetness of green leaves. Very pleasant again, and the third steeping matched this balance.

I’m looking forward to my next cup of this, and it’s one that I’m looking forward to sharing with my family.

This is one blend I have wanted to try ever since I began researching tea. It stood out as unique because of the addition of the toasted rice. Out of the packet, it’s visually appealing thanks to the toasted colour of the rice against the dried green of the leaves, with the odd large fleck of popped rice, which looks very much like popcorn. The smell is fairly strong too, predominantly of the rice with little room for the tea.

Once steeping the aroma grows even more. It is intensely nutty and savoury, although after a few minutes a hint of the green tea forms in the backgroud. The liqour is a pale mixture of green and yellow.

The taste of this tea has the familiar nutty and earthy flavour from the scent, but the sweetness of the tea was much more noticeable. The body of the tea wasn’t as heavy as I expected from the strength of the aroma. After drinking my mug down I was left with a slight buttery taste which was very pleasant.

I’m in another fruity mood and dug deep into my cupboard to find something appealing when I remembered my Simpli-Special order a few months ago. Cherry is another one of my top favourite flavours and I am digging black tea at the moment so with this being fruity and black based it makes it perfect for my current needs.

The raw mixture looks like your standard loose leaf black tea but the smell is like those sour cherry penny sweets cut into lip shapes. Very nice.

Once steeped the tea soup forms a reddy brown liquid that smells of fresh maraschino cherries (cocktail cherries) and strongly so.

Taken without milk or sugar though the website states the cherries can be uplifted by a little sugar. I like trying things without sugar wherever possible.

The taste is not as strong as the smell but the cherry flavour is certainly prominent. I cannot really taste the black tea much at all, just sweet and sour cherries that still remind me of gummy sweets…well what I can remember of them. They don’t make vegetarian cherry gummy sweets here :(

The more I sip the more black tea I can taste but it’s a nice strength and balance, no bitterness or astringency and not so much cherry that you think your drinking juice. Another tea I bet would taste amazing iced.

I was reminded of this blend after drinking Griottes – Della Terra.

The cherries and cranberries are massive, they look like they are just cut in half and their are plenty of them in the mix. As for the chocolate this gets a bonus for using white chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate chips as white chocolate is my favourite and it makes it a little more unique.

Now I am really craving a large slice of black forest gateaux.

This was the most delicious tea that I have ever smelled. First notes (smell alone) were chocolate and sweet dark cherries, just like black forest gateaux cake.
It says that with this tea a splash of milk will bring out some flavour so after the long waiting time of 7 minutes (which is a long time to smell the chocolatey goodness and not tasting it) a splash was added. And just buy the way this tea is to be steeped for 4-7 minutes (as taken from the website).

Taste wise this is amazing, chocolate with fruity cherries and a creamy smoothness. It’s just like eating the real deal. Another tea that my husband is a fan of too and another probable new regular tea in my cupboard. The steep is the right strength for me as it’s not too strong to become bitter or too much of one flavour over the other and nor is it subtle or low on taste.

Simpli beautiful :)

This is a lovely tea, sweet and subtly flavoured with real butterscotch essences. I added half a sugar and a splash of milk as the instructions shown. This is so lovely, I think this going to be a new regular tea purchase for me now :)

It’s hard to describe what butterscotch tastes like other than creamy and sweet, the only difference with the tea is that it’s subtle so you get the butterscotch in the after taste and the more you drink the more you can taste it. Even a winner with my husband who is a coffee drinker over tea.