The Republic of Tea

Like most Earl Greys, I have to be careful not to let this steep too long or the bergamot gets overwhelming for my taste buds. It’s a good wake-me-up cup, however, and a necessity in my tea stash at work.

YUCK! HORRIBLE! DO NOT BUY! I received a sample of this “tea”, actually, it’s a tisane NOT a tea at all, it’s herbal. I tried it this evening and it is terrible!

The ingredients are: INGREDIENTS
Ginger, orange bergamot mint, lemon thyme, anise hyssop, anise seeds and blackberry leaves

No matter how long you steep it for all you can taste is a synthetic mint; the mint did not taste real whatsoever. It was a dry, stale mint with a hint of a kick to it, probably the ginger. It was also kind of a tart mint, not pleasing or soothing; it could have been the lemon thyme because it was a herbaceous-tartness, somewhat soft but nonetheless noticeable. I did not taste any type of fruit at all, no orange-bergamot or blackberry. Anise seed has a distinct licorice sweetness flavor, and there was no resemblance of that ingredient either. I even let it steep a few minutes, sipping in intervals and no matter when I tasted it, it was horrible. I didn’t keep it for long…after about 5 minutes, I threw it out, I just couldn’t take it anymore.

This is a stale, dry “tea”. I would not waste my money on this one…I highly recommend staying away from this tisane.

Not quite as heavy on the bergmot as I’d expect but a solid morning blend. I usually can get two big cups out of one tea bag without losing much of the flavor.

Ok, I must start by saying I am not crazy about this brand anymore…sorry The Republic of Tea, but tasting other tea brands out there, your teas just don’t taste that fresh.

Taste: The Ginger Peach Green Tea is pleasant enough; it does have a nice aroma and the taste of the Ginger is soft and the Peach is a hint overpowering; it tastes more of peach than anything else…where’s the snap of ginger? Where’s the vegetal, effervescent taste of actual green tea? If you are just starting your venture into teas, green and otherwise, than this is a good starting point, but if you already have a developed palate then this would seem a step backwards. It’s a “good” tea, not an “exceptional” one or brand.

Note to The Republic of Tea: IMPROVE YOUR QUALITY [QUALITEA…LOL!]

I tried this tea iced. While it was fruity, I didn’t detect BLUEBERRIES, specifically. I found that there wasn’t anything that really distinguished this tea from Republic of Tea’s other fruity blends. Perhaps if I try it hot, I’ll get more of a blueberry flavor. I love blueberries so I hope it’s true!

I was quite impressed by the fruity mango sweetness that came out of this tea when I made it up iced. This is the 3rd of 6 RoT teas my work stocks. I think I’ve enjoyed this the most so far. I do like the base of this tea, I just find that RoT’s teas taste “dusty” when hot, and I don’t get as much dust when sipping them iced.

Three bags 20oz water from spirit, kept bags in while drinking. Surprisingly didn’t get bitter. Love this tea at work.

Drank 6 or so large mugs of this each with the tiniest splash of cream and it really made my day delightful. I spent five hours in front of the computer at work learning our new scheduling program and this tea helped me trek through it.

Had a mug of this iced at work today. I’m taste testing all of our RoT teas iced at work to see what will be my daily tea, or maybe I’ll just mix it up. I didn’t like this upon first sip, it was too potently floral, rather than more of a juicy citrus bergamot, but it grew on me as I continued to sip at it. Quite a great iced tea, not sure I could make it through the floral notes in the tea hot, but iced, it holds out well.

Brewed up a large glass of this iced using 2 tea bags at work this afternoon. I found the ginger to be a tad strong for my liking, but it makes a refreshing iced cup. I thought the peach flavor was pretty noticeable, so it gets a few more points for good peachy ness.

This tea is really growing on me. I couldn’t sleep and needed mild caffeine to kill my headache and sore throat and Honeysuckle was the first cure my groggy glasses-deprived eyes could distinguish. With lemon and a spoon of raw honey this fixed my throat, stimulant withdrawl and hopefully my insomnia.
It kills me to think that when spring starts and honey is fresh, this tea will be STALE. Bah-humbug. T_T This tea would be so good fresh and whole. Republic of Tea should follow their philosophy and sell their healthful wares in loose leaf form. Eh, I’m getting cranky. 　 お休み～

Mmm. I love the first cup of a new batch of tea. This tastes better more like honey than I remember, especially in how thick it tastes. I rememer trying some of the last canister with orange blossom honey and nearly slurped it down like matcha! I need to find some honeysuckle honey to try with this…

This was a nice end to a surprisingly cold summer day. 64 F on the last day of June? Balderdash!
It really does taste like honeysuckle-in hay, that is. I couldn’t help but think of early autumn and the first afternoon chills when I drank this. It has a sweet, thick smoothness that put me to sleep despite its spark of caffeine. I might pick this up in fall if I can’t find a better organic loose white to stash.

I’m trying out all the teas from The Republic of Tea Experience Sampler Cube. This one is delicious. The vanilla stands out more in this blend than it does in Adagio’s. I like it. It smells just like Adagio’s too. I like this one.

This was the best rooibos I’ve had in a while. I love the real vanilla taste in this like others have said. Every time I have a tea with vanilla is seems to suffocate any other ingredients or taste odd. Even with bad brewing conditions the flavors melded well and highlighted the tea insted of trying to convince us it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

I was in the hospital for low potassium and a couple other minor maldies recently. All the first morning, I was told by a well-meaning (but paranoid) nurse that I couldn’t have caffeine because it’s a diuretic. Five hours later, the doctor said a little tea was fine and she should calm down. I got this from an over priced Boston Stoker stand.
It had a strong, tart berry flavor that almost eclipsed the tea. Not in a bad way, but I just wanted green tea, not fruit tea. The smell and color were great. Those alone made up for the price. I would buy this again if it were organic.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me this sampling. I haven’t tried it before!

This is a very unusual tasting tisane, and I’m not sure exactly yet what I really think about it… so I won’t rate it numerically until I am.

The wintergreen flavor makes this tea palatable, in my opinion. I am not particularly fond of hibiscus, and this blend is quite heavily laden with it, but the wintergreen with the hibiscus makes this a very unusual yet intriguing flavor. I can taste the woodsy note as well as the blueberry.

An interesting blend.

Edited to add: After the tea cooled to the point where I could drink it – I couldn’t. It really wasn’t very good… what demonstrated some promise in this tea was lost as the tea cooled off a bit. Not pleased with this one at all, and I couldn’t finish the cup.

This was pretty decent. It was more peachy than apricoty. It was sweet and pleasant though.

I bought a RTD plastic bottle of this at the grocery store.

Ugh.

It tastes like neither pink lemonade nor green tea.
It is unsweetened – who drinks unsweetened pink lemonade??
There’s a strange peppery/spicy aftertaste, which I guess is coming from the lemongrass (even though lemongrass is neither peppery nor spicy…)

WHY do so many food/bev companies think that lemon and lemongrass are interchangeable, and use lemongrass to impart the flavor of lemon ? As someone who loves lemons but rather dislikes lemongrass, I resent this practice.

I assume the actual teabags are better. Avoid the bottled tea!

This month’s tea sample is supposed to be served iced but I wanted to end the evening with hot tea. For some reason, pomegranate doesn’t taste like much to me – it’s a pleasing taste but it’s hard to figure out exactly what the taste is.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.