The Republic of Tea

Loose
Appearance: bicolor, dark, light green Mild curl to leaf
Aroma when Dry: salty jasmine
After water is first poured: deserty jasmine floral
At end of steep: soapy, floral
Tea liquor:
At end of steep: faint green
Staple? Type yes, won’t buy brand again
Preferred time of day: any
Taste:
At first?: soap, followed by jasmine notes
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? yes, floral soap presence in the palate

A friend of mine gave me a sample tea bag of this to try. As soon as I opened the foil the blueberry was prominent. I steeped it for 6 mins and again all I could smell was blueberry. The first sip was an immediate tang which went away as quickly as it hit. Then all blueberry and slightly sweet. No sugar needed here. It reminded me of KoolAid if KoolAid was made with real blueberries. I immediately thought how good it would be over ice. I think of it more as a blueberry tea than a hibiscus tea. So those who don’t like hibiscus would probably like it.

I’ve been having issues sleeping lately, so I decided to try this tea out. First time steeping it, and I added a small amount of blackberry honey to it. I do feel a bit more relaxed. I enjoy the minty aftertaste, but I can’t discern any of the other flavors. I don’t think the blend tastes well, so I’ll probably experiment with adding milk, lemon, and sugar.

This tea didn’t sound very appealing to me, but I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t overwhelmingly spicy or all high-pitched fruit, but a mellow green with cinnamon and a touch of plum for depth. Having said that, it was a little flat. Still, quite pleasant.

Having the iced version of this again, and it is just as good as the first time. It’s a good summer tea, but I’m still drinking it in this snowy weather. :D I used german rock sugar for this tea…blends well.

I have this in their iced tea bags, and it’s pretty good. I add some rock sugar while it’s hot, let it steep for three minutes and it is delicious. This is a great summer time drink. Very smooth, not too strong or sweet.

Steeping this tea currently, and the smell was amazing as soon as I opened the package. Received this in the mail as a sample with their catalog. I will say this is probably one of their stronger smelling teas. All I can smell is blueberries, and it smells amazing! I’ve never had a blueberry tea I really love that tastes or even smells like a blueberry, so I am excited to try this tea.

As it steeps it is turning a beautiful dark purple, and still smelling like blueberries…just not as strong anymore. Only four more minutes of steeping left… :D Can’t wait to try this one. PLEASE DON’T LET ME DOWN RoT!!!

Wow…good tea here! The best blueberry tea I’ve had yet. It has a nice soft blueberry finish to it. I could actually drink this unsweetened. I drink EVERY tea with a tsp of raw honey, so that says a lot. It has a natural sweetness to it, and tastes like you’re eating an actual blueberry.

I could see myself buying this tea the next time I shop at the RoT. Good job guys! I’m a fan.

I got a free sample of this tea. I was hoping it would be one of those teas that other people don’t like but I like.

No, this tea was awful. I only took a few sips before pouring it down the drain, I feel guilty for making the drain swallow it all.

Bad tidings.

Wow, the scent of this tea after water has been added is of pure, sugary blueberry! I love blueberries, but find that blueberry flavored things can get a little weird if they’re not done correctly. As it steeps, I’m detecting more of the hibiscus.

The color of the tea is like a raspberry, almost blood red. I’m sure it would be beautiful poured over ice! Sipping… Hmm… there are some nice flavors here, but it’s ruined by the stevia. The hibiscus is tart and the blueberry is soft and sweet. There is that lingering aftertaste of stevia that just makes this not too pleasant.

The aroma coming from the bag and the cup is great, but the flavor is disappointingly weak. I added cream, sugar and honey, which brought out the flavor some. It is especially disappointing because I like the idea od blackberry and sage together, and the what I can taste tastes natural. I just wish there was more of it. I don’t know if the problem is that they put too litlle tea in the bag, or too little flavoring, or if the tea base is inferior grade tea.

The flavor was weak, even after six minutes of steeping. Adding honey helped bring out the peach flavor, though the ginger was still faint. After that the flavor was acceptable, but I wouldn’t rush out to buy this tea.

This is kind of just…eh. It’s not completely “throw out my whole cup” horrible, but I still generally don’t finish my cup when this is in it. I was given this as a gift, so I probably won’t repurchase this. I’m not sure if I just don’t like peach teas, or if it was the red tea base I didn’t like…I’m leaning towards the tea base, though, because I HATED another red tea from RoT as well…

This was another bagged sample obtained by my lovely wife at a high-class hotel during her business trip. I am no longer a big bag advocate but I am always more than willing to sample new tea selections.

I steeped this tea on our office Flavia coffee machine by pouring the machine’s boiling water over the bag into a paper cup. The Flavia aparatus does include a “tea” setting to do this, but the setting is no more designed for tea than it would be for instant oatmeal.

In any event, I let the bag sit in the boiling water for five minutes. The resulting color was a reddish golden brown.

As I raised the cup to my lips, I detected a peachy aroma. This made me anxious for my first taste since I rarely smell anything with brewed tea bags. However, the party ended when the flavor hit my taste buds. I did not think it was possible but the taste was actually weaker than the aroma.

The flavor was lightly peachy. The ginger was missing in action, up to about my twentieth sip. Then, I tasted the hidden ginger behind the peach attribute.

This tea does have a natural (instead of chemical) peach taste. There is no astringency to note. I would have liked it more if the flavor was bolder and the ginger was allowed to assert itself. The bag package claims that it was made from the “finest black tea leaves.” If so, let them shine, Republic of Tea! This selection had about the same amount of black tea flavor as herbal tea.

Did I hate this tea? No. Will I go out of my way to try it again? No. However, I would give it another shot if I had the opportunity to test this blend as a full loose-leaf and properly infused incarnation.

I have become a tea snob and don’t drink bagged tea anymore unless I am in the office. Such is the case this morning as I sample this “Eco Bag” obtained by my thoughtful wife at an upscale hotel during her business trip.

I have to admit, the bag looked pretty cool. It was extremely clear so you could thoroughly see the chopped full-leaf tea particles inside. The package boasted that it was “made of renewable resources, including bamboo, its open weave design allows optimal full-leaf infusion.” That sounded impressive but I was more concerned about flavor.

I tossed the bag into a paper cup and set our office’s Flavia Creation 400 coffee machine to run boiling hot water over it. I let the bag soak for five minutes. (Oh, how I missed my Breville One-Touch Tea Maker.)

As has been my experience with most bagged teas, there was no discernible aroma emanating from the cup. The color was a reddish golden brown.

My first sip only produced a mild black tea taste with a touch of astringency. I needed several more gulps before I could begin to identify the Assam, Ceylon, and Darjeeling flavors that comprised this blend. After that, the taste settled into a mild but slightly shrill breakfast tea.

All in all, this selection was not bad but it did not excite me or make me want to add it to my shopping list. Perhaps the full loose-leaf version, brewed in my tea maker and gently poured into my layered glass mug at home, would thrill me much more (location…location…location).

This is one of those RoT teas that was a definite miss for me. I got this one at my school’s cafe, since they were out of my usual Vanilla Almond. This tasted very artificial to me, very much like cherry cough syrup…which I definitely attribute to the red tea base. It seems I just don’t like red tea, try as I might. I didn’t really taste the vanilla, and any pomegranate was masked by the awful red tea/cough syrup flavor. I actually had to throw this cup out, since I literally could not stomach it. Which was unfortunate, since I still had a majority of the cup left.

I bought this not really knowing what to expect. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment buy: I was really looking for RoT’s Honey Ginseng green tea, but couldn’t find that at the store I was in, so I got this instead. I really like green teas, and I really like chai, but the only chai teas I have ever had had a black tea base. So I really didn’t know what this might taste like. You can definitely smell the spices and the almond in this one from the bag before being steeped. Once steeped, you can taste the spices too, although the almond flavor is definitely less pronounced than I hoped it would be. That was a little bit unfortunate, in my opinion, since I do like almond flavors in my tea. Not a bad tea, but definitely not my favorite. It definitely wasn’t disappointing, however, and I would contemplate maybe buying it again, just to change things up once and a while.

This is a very tasty green tea. I tried this at my school’s cafe, and wasn’t really sure what to expect, since RoT can be kind of hit-or-miss for me. While steeping, the tea smells very sweet and flowery, similar to my favorite Jasmine Green by Bigelow. This tea tastes a bit sweeter, though, and you really do taste the honey that gives it its name. Overall, I really liked it, and I am so glad I finally found it in a store near me, since school was the only place I could find where it was sold (besides online, since I didn’t want to pay for shipping), so I can now make it whenever I want to. A nice cup of tea to relax with for sure…no additives necessary! :)

Currently my favorite flavored bagged black tea. They sold these tea bags at my school’s cafe, which is where I first tried it. I have had other teas from Republic of Tea (Ginger Peach, Get Happy, to name a few) and was not really a huge fan of them, so I didn’t know what to expect. However, I absolutely loved this one! The bags smell sweet and nutty, and the tea tastes the same when brewed. There is no need to add anything to this one (even though I take my teas straight anyway), since the vanilla makes it subtly sweet. You can also definitely taste the almond underneath the vanilla, giving it a awesome toasty, nutty flavor. Overall, a really good cup of tea!

Second try, not any better than the first, although for different reasons.

I didn’t add any extra sweetener to the tea this time. It smelled nice both dry and after steeping. Tasting though, was a different matter entirely. I can taste the apple, I can barely taste the vanilla, I can definitely taste the hibiscus and it tastes more sour than tart to me and overwhelmingly I can taste the stevia and it tastes very bad. I couldn’t even finish my cup, I had to go pour it out.

Didn’t realize this had stevia in it when I added my sugar so this is way oversweetened. I’ll rate it properly once I’ve had a cup I can stand.

I’ve deeply enjoyed this tea in these early winter months… it surprised me, but unlike reviewers who went at it with cider in mind, I approached gently, within a ritual of mild evening tea, and so was surprised when this drink answered back with Cinnamon And Cloves! It works if you expect the smell to oversell the taste, which isn’t such a major adjustment with tea, I find.

It Requires Honey. No point in trying or even assessing it without. And I assume if you’re on this site, you pay attention to everything you add to your tea, and your honey is Good Tasty Stuff, because life is too short to buy mediocre honey. I’ve enjoyed this tea with both Wild Orange Blossom and Sage honey (on separate occasions, not mixed, heavens!). Highly recommended thus.