The Republic of Tea

Just cannot get warm today! I had sushi and edamame hummus with rice crackers for lunch, so now I’m craving some green tea.

Backlogging I didn’t steep this long enough. But I really enjoy this tea with the good pineapple taste with abit of ginger and green tea. And I added some sugar.

Backlogging I got some of this from Meghann M. in a swap thank you very much! I really enjoy pineapple in tea. This tea tastes like nice tangy tart sweet natural pineapple and has a nice amount of flavor and abit of kick from the ginger and a nice green tea. I think this tea is really good of course I am bias because I like pineapple in teas.

4 bags in a 6 cup teapot filled to 3/4….added ice after a 5 minute steep. And then put it into my pretty glass pitcher. Good for iced, but I am pretty sure I will not repurchase once this tin is gone.

Thank you Ellen for sending a few sample bags of this tea. It smells so rich and peachy steeping. I can smell the warm ginger. Tasting the tea, I think I either steeped it to long, or am getting to much of a taste from the bag, or there is just something off with it. It smells so lovely, but it tastes a bit cardboardy. I steeped for 2 minutes, but thinking maybe I should only do one. I will hold off rating for now and just enjoy the scent a little longer before I dump the cup.

I used the last of this tea to make some iced tea, along with Samovar’s Yunnan Golden Buds. Even though I used a tablespoon of this tea with three tablespoons of the Golden buds, this tea asserted itself and made an iced tea which was rough around the edges and still had a fake peachy taste. Needless to say I was not sad to decupboard this one!

I apologize, poor Yunnan Golden Buds, to have had you mingle with such an uncouth tea. It will not happen again!

Finally – I brewed my first liter of cold brewed iced tea of the season! I picked this one to start off with because I always enjoyed Snapple Peach iced tea, but now find it much too sweet. I also loved the peach flavor of this hot, but found the tea base a little rough sans additions, and did not find the idea of adding milk to this appetizing.

I let it steep about 15 hours in the refrigerator, added 4 teaspoons of simple syrup, and YUM! It’s delicious, refreshing, and the cold brew took care of the astringency/bitterness issues I was having with the hot tea.

(Note about cold brewing: I usually save the teas that are too strong/bitter for my liking for cold brewing. If you love a tea exactly as it is hot, you will probably have better luck hot brewing double strength and icing rather than cold brewing – you may find the cold brew too weak. For example – I love Golden Monkey iced, but I’d never cold brew it.)

Right now I have some of my Earl Grey Melange + Tippy Yunnan cold brewing. That Tippy Yunnan can put hair on your chest, so I think it’s a good candidate for cold brewing. Will report back on what happens!

I’m not 100% sure this Ginger Peach tea is from the Republic of Tea (coworker’s partner gave about a half oz to me!) but that is what I suspect (he said it was from a widely available brand in a gourmet shop, but he couldn’t remember the name of the company! This is my best Sherlock Holmes deductive reasoning!).

ANYWAY!!!

I am very much enjoying this tea on this snowy, cold day. The sweet and spicy thing is right up my alley! I love the peach flavor (a tad fake, but that’s ok), and the hint of ginger. Even with careful brewing, it’s a tad bitter. I suspect the tea base is not all that and a bag of chips. It’s not bad enough to make me not enjoy the tea, and a half teaspoon of sugar helped smooth the rough edge a bit.

The most exciting thing to me, though, is that I discovered that I love this flavor profile! I know a few more companies make ginger peach teas, and I am going to have some fun tasting my way through them to see if they use a better tea base! I really love this combination of flavors!

This is another one from Meghann M. thank you. This tastes herb like abit minty and abit fruity and tart. I think this is decent, but the herbalness not for sure which one is abit more for me, and would like the mint and the blueberry to be stronger.

This is another blend I got from Meghann M. Thanks once again. I could taste the roobios slightly but not over the top which makes me happy. While lemon Is not one of my favorite fruits in this Its not extremely tart and it blends well with the peach which I like. I believe this is a pretty good.

I was worried that this one would taste like Christmas potpourri. Not worried enough to refrain from trying it, of course, particularly when my local supermarket lets me weigh out wee samples to potentially get hooked on. This is never going to become my favorite rooibos blend, but it’s pleasant… it does remind me of essentially every cinnamon and orange tea I’ve tried before, but sometimes I am in the mood for that. I also think for some reason that this would just be the ideal blend when I’m not feeling well. I’m not sure that’s how RoT would want to advertise this one, per se- “Have a headcold? Do we have the tea for you!” but there’s something very soothing about it, in the same way a hot toddy is soothing. I’m sensing a personal link between citrus, cinnamon, and being soothed while ill, I think.

I have always been curious about the wellness collection from republic of tea, but I have never known which one to try, luckily my lovely boyfriend got me the wellness tea of the month club and this was the first tea.

This smells wonderful, especially for a health/medicinal tea. It smells spicy and a bit like cedar. I think that I under steeped it a bit (I steeped it for around 5 minutes and the package says 5-7). I think I would like to try it at 7 for a bit more strength but I could tell that this has the potential to have a very flavorful tea. I could also see how this would definitely make a sore-throat better. It was a very relaxing cup!

Man this tea smells awesome; it’s all banana-y and coconut-y. I think I need to steep the teabag longer because the flavour is a little weak, but I love the tropical, fruity flavours in this cuppa. The rooibos flavour is barely there, providing a good, solid background to the other flavour notes.

Thank you for sharing the bounty with me, Jaime!

frenchvanilla sent me some of this to try. Thanks so much!!!

I’m not sure about the smell of this…not gonna lie, I thought the smell was coming from my dinner (breaded chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuit) at first, and then I realized, no, it’s coming from the teapot. o.O So, yeah…this smells very savory to me!!

It tastes very toasted coconut to me, though it seems more strongly toasted than coconut. Not really getting much on the cocoa side, but it’s there in the aftertaste. Still can’t believe how much this smells like my dinner! I think I’ll hold off on rating it for now…and will try steeping for 10 minutes as well.