Creme Brulee Black Tea

No 6 from the TTB-A
The boys & I drank a pot of this with breakfast, & it was tasty, but just not my thing I guess.
My main passion in tea is straight full leaf varieties. They contain so much flavor, so many nuances, that I’m generally very satisfied with them. Once in awhile I head off on a tangent of flavored teas, momentarily enamored with the idea of decadent desserts, but I think perhaps I’m reaching my point of saturation, where flavored teas are concerned. Artificial flavors make my tongue hurt. I absolutely can’t bring myself to drink anything that contains glitter, little silver balls, or other crazy decorative things. Most flavored teas, even the ones with natural flavoring, require some stevia to really bring the flavors out, & sitting here, with a TTB full of dessert teas mainly just makes me want a big mug of ASSAM or YUNNAN of OOLONG or PUEHR. Something that really actually tastes like it’s suppose to.

My apologies to anybody who might be offended by my tea bigotry.

Got this in a swap (I am terrible at keeping my swaps straight) at just the wrong time to be able to tear into it right away. But I think my tea cabinet had a plan. It knew that today would be the day my husband would try to get us out of the house on time. It knew that another cold front would be making its way to us giving me a headache. It knew I would have a 2 hour meeting at 9 am that makes me want to bang my head repeatedly against a dull rock.

This tea might be enough to pull me out of this Wednesday slump. Sugary and wonderful this really is like creme brulee in a cup.

What’s nice about this tea is that a little goes a long way. This would have been useful knowledge before I dumped the entire baggy into my teamaker. I tend to err on the side of using too much tea because I like a really strong brew and knew that there was more there than I needed, but not quite enough to get two pots full so I just dumped the whole thing in. Then again there are worse things than having your taste buds smacked on their hypothetical faces by creme brulee flavors so I’m certainly not going to complain. No, instead I’m just going to close this review and click on the ‘add to shopping list’ button, then add it to my wishlist.

I had this last night, and unfortunately I can barely remember what happened five minutes ago, let along a whole 15 hours ago. But I do remember some things about this tea. It was delicious. I did sweeten it, which brought out the sugary creaminess that was layered over the medium bodied black tea flavor. I loved this and will have it again.

Yum. Tastes mainly of caramelized sugar to me, with a decent black tea base that does peek through.

Good hot and lukewarm. I am not a milk with tea person but this is excellent with a little bit of sugar and some cream. Can easily take the place of a dessert without either, but with? Yumtastic.

I bet it would make a good infusion for ice cream or for some mock clotted cream with scones. Ooo… I’m doing a tea this weekend with pumpkin scones. I think I’ll try infusing my clotted cream with this tea.

This would make a nice addition to a Thanksgiving meal.

Simpson & Vail Advent Calendar – Day 20

(originally written November 20th)

Getting near the end of my first two tea advent calendars! I have to travel for work in the second week of December, so I’ll likely be doing the teas intended for that week during the last week of November instead. Not that that’ll be confusing or anything… XD But I don’t really want to lug my variable temperature kettle to France, and I definitely don’t want to lug the matcha or jam calendar items!

So another flavored black from Simpson & Vail. I’ve had mixed reactions to these – while I love their Almond Sugar Cookie and Apple Cinnamon French Toasts teas, a lot of the others left me underwhelmed. So we shall see!

Hmm… To me, this tastes like a coconut black tea. It’s definitely a creamy coconut, like coconut cream pie or coconut cake, but it’s coconut nonetheless. Perhaps a coconut custard black tea.

Honestly though, crème brûlée seems like it would be a difficult flavor to reproduce in tea. So much about it depends on the crisp sugary crust on top, which doesn’t really have a caramel flavor. At least, not in the buttery way that caramel is usually represented in flavoring.

Now I want crème brûlée. I guess I should be glad I’ll be heading back to France soon, LOL!

Sipdown 62/375 on this sample which came to me courtesy of MissB.

This tea seems to split opinion, and I come down firmly on the side of ‘yay’ over ‘nay’. To me, the flavour is pretty accurately creme brulee – it has notes of vanilla, creamy custard and caramelised sugar which all meld together to create the creme brulee effectively. The base tea is strong, but some slight bitterness actually helps to create the burnt aspect of the topping in my mind and I don’t mind it as much as I usually do. With a little rock sugar and a splash of milk this is delicious.

I had my doubts about this one actually tasting like creme brulee but when does S&V NOT deliver on their flavors?!? I would say S&V has some of the most consistently accurate tea flavors. I must have steeped this one perfectly on the first steep because this one tasted so much like creme brulee! The second steep was too hot and steeped too long, therefore ruining the flavor. But the first steep was marvelous! It mostly has that flavor of slightly torched caramel with hints of custard. I think it should have more of a custard flavor but I certainly didn’t expect a sweet burnt sugar/caramel flavor. The black tea base is perfect at a teaspoon and a half. Not too weak of a brew and not astringent. It’s also a solid black tea for showcasing so many of S&V’s great flavors. I will definitely try to steep the remainder of my sample like the first steep.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug// 10 minutes after boiling // 2 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // few minutes after boiling // 4 minute steep

Ok, here’s my re-written post. Apparently my iPhone refreshes pages whenever it comes back from the lock screen. :/

Hey, this one didn’t get chocolate-ified in shipping! Yay!

Now, as far as this being a creme brulee tea goes, I’m not sure they hit the nail on the head. However, it is a great first-thing-in-the-morning treat. I’m getting notes of vanilla, dairy, maple, lightly toasted caramel without the butter, and something that took me a minute to recognize. It was hookah tobacco! Not hookah smoke, just the super-sweet, almost fruity scent of the tobacco itself. I wasn’t expecting that at all, but it’s plain as day to me. So, basically, this is very interesting and tasty… but I wouldn’t call it creme brulee.

I also want to mention that the caffeine content is very nice if you’re dragging your feet.

Got this tea from…Mandy I think??
Well whoever it’s from I definitely owe them some tea because as skeptical as I was over Creme Brulee teas lately, I actually thoroughly enjoyed this tea. I can’t even place what I like about it so much….
I’m getting a crap load of caramel from this tea right now, and it’s amazing. It’s strong and sweet. Don’t even need to think about adding anything to enhance the flavor. It’s delicious! Definitely a win!
If I ever place another Simpson & Vail order, definitely getting this one!

Thanks Cheri for the sample!
I must admit, the first and only time I’ve ever had Creme Brulee was on my cruise last month, so I’m not the perfect judge of accuracy here! I can say that this was caramelly and sort of creamy and vanilla-y. I’m not getting much custard from this, but I’m satisfied with what I am getting. I nice sweet dessert tea.