The Republic of Tea

I’m an elementary school teacher, so I have some interesting mental associations with the smell of cake (think classroom parties with 25+ overly-stimulated, frosting-covered children). This tea immediately brought to mind our recent Valentine’s Day celebration and the multitude of confections I was force-fed. Not a good start for me.

I used two bags in my travel mug along with my customary milk and sugar. I was pleasantly surprised by the deep pink color the milk revealed in my dark mug. The scent was strong in my car as I drove to work – not terribly unpleasant, but persistent.

Yep. Tastes just about like red velvet cupcakes. Perhaps I’ll give it another shot this summer when my classroom associations aren’t so vivid. I finished the cup by mostly ignoring the taste. I’m glad I only have a few bags of this – I got it in a Republic of Tea sampler cube. Perhaps part of the problem is that it suffers in comparison to yesterday’s Coconut Cocoa, which came in the same cube.

I steeped two bags in my travel mug to have at work (milk and two heaping teaspoons of sugar, cuz that’s how I roll). I’m not a coconut fanatic usually, but WOW. The coconut flavor really came through. It reminded me a little bit of an Almond Joy candy bar. I can’t wait to have it again!

I adore this tea. I love vanilla, I love almond—so what’s not to love. It can be weak or bitter (it’s kind of hard to get just right), but I err on the side of strong because I take it with milk and sugar. This tea is comforting to me and I have many good memories of it from college and cafe dining with friends.

I love this tea. I remember discovering it at the Joseph Beth cafe during college. I love peach, and this is a nice, fruity tea that is good lightly sweetened. I think the ginger to peach ratio works really nicely. This one is good hot or cold.

Funny how this tea is either a hate or love affair. I mean really…like conservatives and liberals! Lighten up. It’s not that bad. I’ve had better, I’ve had worse and this is not that bad. I think instead of chocolate it tastes more caramelly with a hint of strawberry flavor that reminds me of the strawberry taffy that you bought as a kid (I’m really old so you may not have had the pleasure of having this type of taffy bar) for 5cents and you slap cracked it on a hard surface to break it into small enough pieces to eat. It was the most wonderful fake taste…cream-a-liscous! Well… Give this to your old folks if you don’t like it and ask them to remember the taffy. Good with cream too. It is dessert.

I must be in a Valentine’s day mood – when I saw this at World Market I had to pick it up! This is an exclusive tea to World Market, so a little hard to find, but I recommend it!

The tea bags smell of chocolate, and as usual they have a puny amount of tea in them, so I used 2 bags for one large cup. The bags smell nicely of both chocolate and cherry. While steeping the cherry scent comes out sharply. I got worried – it was a bit like Robitussin! I steeped 4 minutes and then tried the tea. It’s mostly cherry when drunk plain. I added milk and sugar, because I do that with all dessert teas. I think the milk was the missing note – adding that, I suddenly tasted cherry cordials – even the cream centers! I love them, but I don’t buy them because I have a problem with eating all of them. So I’m glad to find a tea that answers that craving!

I like that the tea base is a black tea, rather than the rooibos in many chocolate teas. It’s not distinctive, but I can taste it in the backdrop. I absolutely love this tea, and I might have to go back for another tin before it disappears!

On my first cup I made the mistake of using only one teabag and steeping for only 5 minutes and the result was terrible. For some reason that artificial chocolatey taste was super noticeable in that brew. However I did give it another go tonight and this time used 2 bags and steeped for double the time and it came out much much better. Still by no means a favorite but enjoyable enough to not make me regret buying the tin.

I have discovered the thing to do with this is just cut the teabags open and use three of them for one mug of tea. It is sweet and chocolate-y, still I am not sure I would buy this again and I wish I could buy it in loose leaf form.

definitely not as terrible as I thought it would be – ha!

And believe it or not I think red rooibos is growing on me a bit… but it does seem to vary a lot with a particular tea or blend.

So I went to the doctor today and he thinks I do have plantar fasciitis, which sucks for me but at least it is treatable so I am hopeful.

On the way to work I stopped off to a little store to get some lunch for today and there they had this tea. Against my better judgment (and especially because I have a bad track record with RoT), I decided to buy this.

Because I’m used to RoT’s weak teabags I steeped this up with two teabags in a 10 oz. mug for 5 minutes. I am glad this isn’t terrible, especially because it’s roobois. :) I am getting some nice chocolate-y notes and the overall brew is very smooth and mild. I don’t love it but I don’t think I will have problems finishing the tin.

Just a healthy impulse purchase due to my self-pity – hey, at least I didn’t drink a bottle of wine (that might come later)

I have been looking at this tea ever since I saw it in my teacher’s tea basket this morning. I finally decided to just dive in and brew myself up a cup because it would pick at me until I tried it.

When brewed, it is a very nice light golden color. When I was walking over to my art history class, I thought I would catch the scent of honey. I sniffed it after it was finished brewing (about a five minute walk from my english to my art history class) and it did indeed smell like honey.

The taste itself was interesting. It tasted sweet. The sweetness didn’t overpower the green tea at all. It reminded me of gathering up and drinking dew off of fresh cut grass. Light, sweet, and vegetal. There was a little bit of a tang with the aftertaste, but I didn’t identify it until the very last sip.

I’m not sure if i like it or not. I think it is a tea that would grow on me, but I wouldn’t have it all of the time. I wouldn’t turn it down though.

Another freebie, hard to complain. But reviewing is another story. This smells so nice as it’s brewing but after one sip, you’ll think, “where did you go so wrong?!” There is a definite dirt taste there – and not in a sexy way, like that Dirt perfume by Demeter. I’m talking old dirt in my tea cup. I am not a happy camper. I’m tempted to dump it out.

I gave into temptation and dumped it out. RoT – apropos. This does taste like rot.

First off, this is the bagged version I got for free so I can’t complain too much…
Yes, I can. I get the holiday part – cinnamon-y and comforting – but I am missing the spice! Maybe I’m too spoiled (or snobby or even bratty for that matter) but when I see “spice” as an ingredient I am expecting a SPICE-y flavor. Not allspice, but something that kicks it up a notch.
This is OK, but nothing to write home about and certainly not anything to go out of your way to find. Thank goodness I didn’t purchase during the holiday season or I’d be a real Tea Scrooge. ;)

I was under the impression that this company made quality tea (the ridiculous amounts of money you pay for a fancy looking tin of tea bags certainly says so). Still, I went into this knowing that I wasn’t going to get something amazing out of a teabag, but I expected it to be better than a grocery store teabag. It wasn’t. It tasted EXACTLY like these pomegranate green tea bags that Salada (a cheap grocery store brand) makes. ZERO green tea taste whatsover. All that this tastes like is hibiscus and a very artificial and medicinal pomegranate flavoring. I’m glad I got this as a free sample. All I can say is that these people are very good at marketing low quality teas with aesthetically pleasing packaging, attractive names, and promises of antioxidants. Slap the word “antioxidants” on a bag of lawn clippings and rich housewives everywhere will buy it by the kilo…

This morning I bought a milk frother, so that I might make tea lattes. The girl at the shop assured me that this tea was great in latte form – and I love Republic’s other chocolate teas, so I bought the tin. I am in danger of becoming a fan of dessert teas, and I never liked them before!

This tea smells amazing, and you can see the cocoa powder drifting out of the bags when you take them out. I was excited! I steeped 2 bags in 12 oz of water for 8 minutes (I think mate needs a long time.) I used my frother on 4 oz of milk, and I added sweetener to the milk. I was a little worried after seeing the mixed reviews, but I gave the plain tea a sip.

Well, I don’t like mate without milk (I think it’s a coffee sub, and as such it requires it.) But let me try here – it’s dark and rich, with a little bit of bitter dark chocolate taste (as if you ate the powder from a box of unsweetened cocoa powder.) It’s very dark and murky – you can’t see through this tea!

I added my milk and sugar. Ah – this is what I was hoping for! It’s very smooth with milk. There’s the taste of the mate (which is a taste I like, but it is a bit earthy) and then the finish is smooth chocolate. I don’t think it tastes like dark chocolate after adding milk – more a mild bittersweet chocolate. I actually think this is a great hot chocolate substitute – I may have to float some marshmallows in my next cup! The last sip contained the dregs of the cocoa powder, and had a nice bitter finish.

Recommended for fans of mate and chocolate, as both are present in the cup. It’s more expensive than some of republic’s teas, and I wish it were available in loose form. I recommend using 1 bag per 7 oz of water – a pain, I know, but I find that all of Republic’s teas are best that way. It would have certainly been too weak with just one.

From what I’ve read here on Steepster, everyone has an opinion on lapsang souchong. Being the not-so-gourment Steepsterite, I had no idea what that was. Luckily, the local co-op sells RTOP loose leaf tea in bulk, so it was really easy to try this tea out. I got about 2 cups-worth of leaves and prepared myself.

Despite a lot of people not liking the taste of lapsang souchong, I find this specific LS pretty enchanting. Now, I haven’t had any others, and I’m sure the quality and taste differ with each blend, but I’m happy with this. It’s smoky, strong, well-built, and aromatic. I also like that it can be watered down without affecting the quality — just add a bit more water if it’s too strong. I think that I would want to serve this at a Steampunk tea party, if those exist.

Every so often I need to try making myself drink things like this that I’m not hugely fond of. I do like cinnamon and plums but this tea is very light, and weak. I wonder what base they are using here for the black tea, perhaps it’s a ceylon, I’m not really sure. I would not be too tempted to buy this one again, it’s overpriced. You’d need to use at least two teabags in an 8 oz mug.

Oh, this is lovely! I was not expecting to love it so much. I picked it up at whole foods today (can’t leave without tea, you know?) and decided to have it after dinner (which was curry, so I thought the coconut would go well.) The leaves smell like barley – not much cocoa, and no real coconut. I opened up two tea bags, put them in my infuser basket, and brewed 14 oz of tea.

I let it steep for 10 minutes, based on the reviews on Steepster that it needed extra time. The initial aroma was still of barley, but then I smelled some cocoa coming through. I took a sip – surprisingly, this is all about the dark, unsweetened cocoa. I can’t detect much coconut. I added a splash of milk and a dash of sugar, as I do to all dessert teas. This brought out the coconut slightly, but it is still in the background. The cocoa, once sweetened lightly, blends with the barley to make a taste that is really different. I love it – it’s not too sweet or heavy, and it’s a bit exotic. I think it would work iced as well. Republic of teas is a bit pricey, but I do love these “cuppa chocolate” teas!

Brewed a Gallon of this and put it on ice. Best idea ever…. it make me happy and proud to say that i am7 months free of soda today and it’s all thanks to tea…

id also like to shout to a few steepster pals that helped me through my mind numbing, Nine Dragon Golden Needles ordeal yesterday. sad stuff…. thanks guys

Decided to go Iced with this tea…. its fantastic. i brewed 1/3 gallon water with 1oz Republic of Tea Ginger Peach Black for 5 minutes and 30 seconds, filled to 1/2 full, mixed 2/3 cup sugar, filled to 4/5 full and chilled for 6 hours. popped a couple icecubes in my glass and went to town. Its like the perfect koolade.

My breakfast tea today was the Ginger Peach Black from The Republic of Tea. Its an interesting tea to begin with because of the ginger. I didn’t really ever think about ginger being in a tea… but really it makes a lot of sense. Ginger has a unique taste that somewhat difficult to explain other than to say that it’s Asian…y. It only works some of the time and only works with some things. for example… this tea is a good morning tea because it has the acid of the peach and the spice form the ginger. it woke me up well and got me thinking. I said “self… Do ya think this would be a good iced tea???” and i replied…“ahh, its worth a try isn’t it.” This iced concoction is currently chilling in my fridge and we shall see how it goes. but over all this is a fantastic tea for a cold, rainy, Ohio morning.