White Chocolate Peppermint Rooibos

Simpson & Vail Advent Calendar: Day 13

I was not looking forward to this one after seeing y’all’s reviews today! But when I first opened the package and took a sniff, it didn’t seem THAT bad. Aggressively minty, sure, and with an undernote of organic matter on the verge of being too ripe, but not horrible.

And then I brewed it up. And took another sniff.

WELP. It’s like a wet dog rolled around in toothpaste and moldy marshmallows. Ugh!

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.

Hm, I see some awful reviews but they are older now so wondering if Simpson & Vail changed it.

We had last night with the new Alien Romulus movie on Hulu with all the commercials (ack). We enjoyed the tea as something different. I did expect the peppermint to be stronger and actually added more tea to it than I usually would have a little, but it was definitely not too harsh or strong with peppermint. I didn’t find any sour taste but had ordered a tin so will see if my tastes change with it.

Unfortunately as a note the day before did Mulberry Black from New Mexico Tea company and find it delicious, but it’s not in steepster catalogue and doesn’t seem to exist anymore with the company either :(

Advent Calendar 2024 – Day 13

Oh, boy. I had tried this blend once before and had a horrible experience ha ha, but I was interested to try it again and see if that was a fluke or a bad batch.

Nope, still horrible! Tastes like a pile of wet rags, and also weirdly sour. There’s a cooling peppermint finish, but mostly sour rags. I’m so perplexed how anyone at Simpson & Vail could ever think that this is good, and equally confused by the positive reviews on their website. It makes me feel like I’m crazy ha ha…

Ah well, just another in a long line of peppermint bark tea failures for me. XD

I’m forever searching for a replacement to Teavana’s tea of this same name, and this is unfortunately not it. It tastes so strongly of something weird and it took forever for me to figure it out – potato skins! It tastes like raw potato skins. Not in a good way. I’m having it cold, and it’s drinkable, but I taste no white chocolate and very little mint. I don’t know how it went so wrong!! Maybe it’s because it uses “white chocolate peppermint flavoring” instead of actual white chocolate and peppermint. The second time I tried this, I added milk, and I could taste more mint, but the potato skin flavor is persistent. It’s not terrible, but I don’t really want to have too many cups of this.