The Republic of Tea

AWESOME.
The pineapple/guava combo is a winner. Though I can’t really distinguish much of the guava, the pineapple really comes through. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. The pineapple tastes just like a traditional pineapple-jelly Korean Moon Cake.
The fragrance is awesome, and gets stronger over time. The taste is slightly weaker than the aroma, as I taste it more in the nose than the tongue. But nonetheless, it’s sufficiently strong for a white tea.
No tannin taste after the cup, just sweet goodness.

Once again my taste in tea puts me in the minority. I like this tea! It is the current Republic of Tea catalog sample, and I made a cup as soon as I got it (and squealed like a giddy child when I saw the combination of strawberry and chocolate they’d sent out). I think it’s better than RoT’s Strawberry Vanilla and on par with their Vanilla Good Hope.

This was another one from the Republic of Tea sampler cube I bought. It smelled nice and tasted okay, but I didn’t find it particularly special and I won’t go out of my way to get any more.

Delicious!

I was rather disappointed with this tea.
The jasmine flavor is difficult to detect when hot, but it gets better as the tea cools. Otherwise, it simply tastes like hot water.
However, the high quality of tea leaves does come through, as well as yield a pleasant jasmine flavor, weak as it is. Yet most drinkers wouldn’t normally look for a high-grade leaf taste, but rather overall presence. Because Republic of Tea suggests steeping for only 30-60 seconds, the flavor ends up rather weak and seemingly under-steeped.
If you’re really looking for SUBTLE flavor, this might do the job. The mouthfeel and lingering flavor afterward is nice, with no sensation of tannin.

Smells very strongly and overly sweet. Tasted better then it smelled. Was like a light berry tea with the slightest after-taste of chocolate. Definitely not my favorite.

Not impressed. This sample came free with my RoT catalog. They’re out of the normal black tea in the breakroom at work, so I figured I’d try this. I must admit, seeing Rooibos on the list was NOT a plus for me. It did smell good when opened, like chocolate covered strawberry candy. I was a bit surprised at how small the bag seemed. Brewing it smelled ok too. You could definitely get the scent of the chocolate behind the strawberry note, but there was an odd musty sort of underscent. I presume that’s the rooibos.

It steeps quickly to a reddish-amber and the color of the bag indicates there probably isn’t a good second steep in it. Which is not a problem, as this isn’t very good. You can taste the chocolate and the strawberry, but they’re almost artificial in some way, overly sweet. The musty rooibos aftertaste isn’t very appetizing either. Now that I’ve had this, I’ll know to refuse a cup in the future. Poor taste, unappealing stamina, and severely overpriced. Bleah.

Sofar, this is my favorite tea. - It’s amazing.

tried doing a re-brew with the same herbs, 17 minutes, still too weak

Amount: 3 teaspoons
Additives: 2 teaspoons german rock sugar
Water: 1 teapot, boiling filtered water about 180
Steep Time: a little over 6 minutes
Served: Hot

Notes: adding creme overpowered the flavors, MilitiaJim did not find it beneficial. It was improved by the sugar in my opinion enough to bump it form a 1 to a 2 of 3.

Smell: sweet, coco
Flavor: smooth, chocolaty almond
Body: medium
Aftertaste: sweet coco
Liquor: dark brown

Amount: 3 scoops tea for 1 mug (not full teapot)
Time: a little over 5:30 minutes

Served: Hot
Smell: Almond, coco
Flavor: bitter, light
Aftertaste: none

added 1 scoop german rock sugar: took away the bitter but left the tea unremarkable

Added Almond milk – no change to the sweetened tea

next time i want to try longer brewing, maybe some honey? or maybe less brew time.

Had a cup of this while opening presents with my family. It was very fitting. I enjoyed the cup although I enjoyed the sample from last night better. I am leaving for vacation in a few hours and then no more steepster for a week :(. Merry Christmas!!!!

Yay for free tea samples! Had this as an afternoon pick-me-up.I have apparently had it before (probably last Holiday season’s RoT sample – hah) It wasn’t spectaculiar, but it was a nice sturdy black tea. And it did remind me of the holidays, I feel like it would be fun to drink on Christmas morning. I don’t think I would buy it but I did enjoy my cup. Also I think if it was steeped for any more than 4 minutes, the flavors would be lost in bitterness.

Not bad. Got it in a free sample. It was pretty much a basic black tea with cinnamon.

Can’t say I’m really enjoying this one, unfortunately…

I got this as a sample from RoT in their catalog, and I was kind of excited to try it. Strawberry and chocolate! Where can it go wrong?

Well, for starters, the bag smells a little musty. I really wanted a bright strawberry smell, and it just smells like dusty strawberry mixed with dusty chocolate. So I steeped this bugger up for 7 minutes, and tossed the mini-bag.

Here’s where the problem begins. For some reason, the infusion smells like strawberries and chocolate, mixed with a cilantro-type smell. I loathe cilantro. I’m one of those people that has that gene that makes it taste like disgusting soap. I don’t know how people can like it. Soapy-cilantro-rooibos-strawberry-chocolate. No thanks.

It actually definitely doesn’t taste like cilantro, which is a plus. This is a very light rooibos, with the strawberry and chocolate clearly coming out. The strawberry is more on the forefront of the taste, the chocolate in the aftertaste, but the two blend together. The only problem is that this tastes like cheap chocolate, like the kind you get from CVS for Easter. That kind of musty, goes-white-very-quickly chocolate that kind of doesn’t taste like chocolate, but more like plastic-chocolate. The strawberry isn’t a round and juicy flavor, but an echo of something more akin to strawberry candy. Like those little strawberry hard candies wrapped in a pseudo-strawberry paper and had a semi-liquid filling.

The rooibos base lends an odd tartness to the blend. I definitely think this would have been better with a black tea base. The rooibos isn’t robust enough to support these flavors.

Is it horrific? Nope, but it’s certainly not great either. I’m having trouble finishing my cup. I could imagine other people enjoying this, though.

I got this as part of a tea trade with oOTeaOo (thank you!). I have to say that it’s a distinctly ‘herbal’ herbal tea. The scent is mainly of chamomile with some lavender tucked underneath and the taste is, again, mostly of chamomile, with a rather herb-y-tasting background.

Delicious!
White teas seem a bit weak for my taste, but the orange top note on this one is wonderful.
My favorite white tea, hands down, and one of my favorites overall.
Enjoy this in a mug without handles, in both hands, directly under your nose, so you can enjoy the aroma until every drop is gone.