The Republic of Tea

Brewed a cup of this tea this morning at work and enjoyed it quite a bit. We have one of those bottled water dispensers that provide hot water as well as cold, so am not sure what temperature it was. Left the tea in to steep and added more water an hour later…..tea still tasty after lunch.

I just bought this tea and made a pot of tea yesterday. I enjoyed it very much. From reading All the Tea in China, I learned that this tea came from the work of Robert Fortune for the East India Company in the late 1800’s. He “gathered” tea seeds in China and the tea plants that sprouted from those seeds were planted in India…Darjeeling tea came from that “project”.

According to the story on the package, this particular tea is second and third flush tea. ie, they were part of the second and third annual picking of these tea plants.

I love this tea, great tangerine notes. I like my tea sweetened and this needs just a teaspoonful of organic raw sugar.

I was introduced to the original ROT Honey Ginseng at Panera’s Bread and loooooved it. And I don’t really like honey, so go figure! But I drink decaf so I was happy to find that ROT made a decaf version. It’s very good! The flavor is just as powerful as the regular. Right now this is my new favorite tea. I am obsessed with it and wish to drink cup after cup. And since it’s decaf, I can!

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 teabag
Water: hot spigot water, 8 oz
Steep Time: a little over 3 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: ginger, peach, delicious!
Steeped Tea Smell: peachy, vegetal
Flavor: lightly vegetal, slightly bitter, astringent
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: ginger bite
Liquor: translucent yellow-green

I got this as a sample with the Republic of Tea catalog this month.

I am not finding the peach in the taste, only the smell.

It’s an OK green, I don’t really love greens anyway. I don’t plan to buy it.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/04/republic-of-tea-teabag-green-tea-ginger.html

This was actually the very first tea I ever purchased. I had recently added this to my shopping list and today in the mail was this sample! The tea bag smells wonderful. The brew is light and refreshing. I am not a big green tea fan, but this is doable for me. I always tend to gravitate to ginger and peach flavor profiles. I like it:)

Backlogging…
I was trying to sing my repertoire on Tuesday, but my voice seemed to have less presence (probably because I was sitting at a piano). I drank this at dinner, and at my studio recital, I had some of the best sound I’ve ever had. It relaxes me and keeps my throat soothed when it’s not too phlegmy :)

Like the other Republic of Tea I’ve had, this also smelled very good. But I have to agree with others here…the idea is good, but the black tea is pretty strong and the expected vanilla almond flavoring barely comes through. I still like drinking it, but in terms of finding a good tea that has vanilla almond flavors, there are probably better alternatives out there…

It tastes mostly of jasmine…at least, I’m pretty sure what that flowery smell and taste were. It is good, especially for bagged tea. White tea, in my experience, doesn’t usually have a very strong flavor, and I think the addition of jasmine was a pretty good idea.
When you open the canister, it does smell very nice…that was probably my favorite part of this tea, though the flavor was very good, relaxing too.

I love this tea. It’s creamy and delicious on a chilly spring night!

I have had a couple of sample bags of this for awhile, but haven’t tried it because it is a Chinese green. In the past, I typically have not cared for Chinese greens and I’m not sure this will be an exception. The bag prior to steeping smells very strongly of honey mixed with something else which I’m assuming is how ginseng smells. I may have let this oversteep, the bag was in the water for around 4 minutes…. The smell after brewing is very much a pleasing honey aroma and the color is a nice golden honey also. The first taste is a bit underwhelming considering the amazing aroma. I’m barely getting a honey taste though I’m mostly tasting the ginseng (I guess it is the ginseng, it sure isn’t the green tea base). Overall the tea is pleasant and light….wait….oh my, the aftertaste is a bit funky. Must be the ginseng or something. Ugh, I almost want to keep drinking this just to keep the aftertaste at bay. Okay, it probably isn’t as bad as I’m making it seem. The tea would be very good without the aftertaste though. I may have to adjust the rating after I try this steeped for a shorter length of time.

it’s been a long time since I’ve logged, but here we go!
In contrast to other tea notes about this cherry white tea, I found it to be very light in taste. I was hoping for more cherry taste. It’s barely there, and fades quick. Smells nice. But the tea isn’t even red so how much cherry can there be?
Disappointing tea note from me for this Cherry Charity tea (sip for the cure) but I recommend trying the Sip For The Cure Pomegranate Vanilla Red Tea.

(backlogging)

Nathaniel and I went to St. Michael’s, MD for a wine festival this past weekend, and we stayed at a cute B&B, Five Gables Inn. They had hot water and RoT teas available during the day, and after walking around town all day I decided to grab a cup and soak in the huge bathtub.

The pomegranate flavor completely overwhelmed the green tea flavor. The worst part was that the flavoring had a false note, so it wasn’t even a pleasant cup of fruity (not-green) tea.

CupOfTree sent me some of this loose-leaf! Thanks! Prior to today I have only had the bagged version. I will say the loose leaf is much better. It smells like Ginseng and Honey and it tastes like Honey, Ginseng, and Lemon.

60 rating for bagged version…current posted rating based on loose leaf.

I received this as a free sample with the newest catalog! I must say it DOES smell like actual honey! I’m not a honey freak by any means so my rating won’t be out of this world based on my actual tastes. I thought the smell was more powerful than the taste. It was quite mellow which I guess is actually a good thing because I wasn’t looking for an over-the-top honey OR ginseng taste. At first I was thinking about rating this lower because it wasn’t memorable nor would I consider buying a tin of this stuff. But mixed with the green tea and the fact that I can actually drink the whole cup, I will give it an average rating…as it seems to be average all-round.

One thing I did notice is that I never took the bag out of the tumbler! It seems to be impossible to over steep…I guess that is a plus for those on the go.

So…ehhhh…it’s alright…

I had another cup of this iced this morning. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. I will be finishing the rest of the bags of this iced, but I definitely will NOT be buying more of this tea any time in the future. There are much better teas out there, iced and otherwise.

So, this tea has just been sitting in my cupboard for awhile. I have established that it is not good hot, but I began to wonder if it would be good iced. Then I remembered that I have tried it iced but I had brewed it hot then let it cool which resulted in a nasty tea. So I decided to cold brew it in an attempt to make it drinkable and not so bitter. The experiment was a success! Cold brewing it allowed the blackberry to come through much more with the sage just lingering sweetly in the aftertaste. I don’t drink a lot of iced tea if I have the choice between hot and iced. But this one is definitely good iced. Not great, but much improved over previous fataliTEAs of this. My rating is being raised, but I can only give this tea a mid-range score because it is so horrible hot. This tea is a one-trick pony.

I actually had this last night but forgot to log it. The first time I had this tea hot, it was okay but nothing amazing. I decided to try it again, but iced to see if it was any better. What was I thinking? I should have remembered that there was a slight “off” taste to the hot version that turned into bitterness when chilled. I should also have remembered that adding sweetener does not help with the “off” taste but makes it a big stronger. So, I made this extra strong, added a bit of clover honey, and poured it over ice. It was probably one of the worst iced teas I have ever had in my life. I think it may be the sage in this blend that is responsible for the strange taste, I’ll have to remember not to select teas with sage in the future.

I’m normally not a fan of herbal teas, but it seems as I’ve grown older, I have learned to appreciate their subtle flavor. But I didn’t get this tea for its flavor, I got this tea for what it claimed to do and even when I was drinking at least one cup of day, I can’t say that my skin got gorgeous. In fact, I often wondered if it has the opposite effect on my skin. Even though it’s been months since having a cup, I still occasionally crave this tea, I like it’s somewhat flowery fruity taste and I was thinking today how good it would taste infused in some lemonade as it already is great iced. I just wish my skin liked it as much as I do.

This smells and tastes very strongly of honey- an herby, delicious honey that I’d love to get in a skincare product. But I don’t like to drink the strong taste of honey particularly, so as soon as I smelled this, I knew I was in trouble. The green tea was overshadowed by the ginseng and honey. I did get a bit of an energy boost from this, but it meant that I felt a bit shaky and no more alert. I knew I wasn’t going to like this one going in- trying to make things taste like honey is never a great idea in my book.

This stuff is pretty good! I’m usually not much of a rooibos fan—it tastes like cough syrup to me, but there wasn’t too much of that in this tea if I didn’t brew it for too long. As far as actually increasing concentration, I’m not sure I can attest to that! But it’s a nice fruity taste—cranberry and orange.