The Republic of Tea

This smells amazing. Like lots and lots of peaches.

The flavor is a nice, smooth blend of spicy ginger and fruity peach.

I am lowering this because it really isn’t as flavorful as when I first had it. Don’t get me wrong, it is tasty and it will have a special place in my heart for being my first ever mate, but it tastes like coffee. I don’t really like the taste of coffee.

Backlogging from Thursday afternoon:

Oh, Double Dark Chocolate Mate! How I have missed my mate! Any mate! Why did I ever forget to drink your dark liquor even when I ran out of my own bags? How could I have forgotten that you were lurking in my teacher’s tea basket. Untouched except for my fingers scooping you out of your tin and into my styrofoam cup to have a bath in warm water to let you release your flavor. So delicious. So chocolate-y. So mocha tasting. I will never forget you again.

I brewed this up a little too weak this time. No cocoa aftertaste and it tasted more like water than mate until I got to the end of the cup. I’m chalking this one up to a brewing failure.

I was excited to drink this because it meant I finally got to compare this mate to Guayaki’s chocolate mate. This was dark and earthy and dark cocoa stayed on my tongue. I added a splash of milk to see how it would taste as well, and the vanilla soy completely overwhelmed the tea and mixed with the chocolate to make it taste like coffee. I’m not sure I liked that effect because I don’t really like the taste of coffee.

I am bumping this down a few notches because I don’t think the mate tastes as good as the Guayaki mate. I still love it because it was my introduction to mate, but I think I’m going to find better brands out there.

Apparently, I can’t bear to think of a Tuesday or a Thursday without having a cup full of this tea. I discovered something very interesting about drinking this cup. I did not taste the mocha this time. Instead I tasted a rich, deep earthiness with just a touch of bitterness that would sound on the back of my tongue. When the steam rose up from the cup, I could smell the chocolate a tiny bit, but it mostly reminded me of petrichor. That smell of rich, damp earth.

I’m going to knock a couple of points off for the loss of chocolate, but I think I fell in love with yerba mate.

I had another glass of this in class today. This time, I used boiling water and I think that it made the taste darker. It reminded me much more of a rich deep mocha with the cocoa powder being the aftertaste. It was very delicious.

I played the ring game at my school today. That is a tradition when you announce your engagement to the school. So, I announced that I am engaged today. I fooled my entire class. They didn’t think it was me, so it was a big unveiling. I am so happy.

I was nosing through my professor’s tea basket today after class and saw this tea. In the middle of sniffing it, she encouraged me to take some for the road since nobody else was drinking it. This was one of the teas that I have been wanting to try, so I plunked it down in a little Styrofoam cup and brewed it on the spot.

I think I brewed this around 6-7 minutes while I was walking to my next class. The water was at a lower temperature than normal, so I figured a longer steep time wouldn’t hurt it. I drank it hot and plain.

This was my first time trying a mate. I’m still not sure what to expect from one, but I could feel the effect it had on me. I was a little drowsy after class and I knew I would be in danger to not pay attention in my next class. After I drank this I was alert, barely doodled, and took more notes than normal. Considering that this was my last class of the day, the tea perked me up.

The chocolate is subtle. I saw the cocoa powder falling off of the bag when I put it in my cup. The bag itself smelled like dark chocolate hot cocoa powder. I get the taste of the cocoa in the back of my throat and on my tongue during the after taste more than when I was drinking the tea. The taste of the tea was light and reminded me of mocha. Only without the aftertaste of a bad espresso that most coffee drinks leave me with.

I can’t wait to go back to my class to get more of this tea. If I had it in my personal stash, I would have drank at least two cups of it today. This is a tea that I would recommend and that I plan to pick up in the future. I also have plans to try different types of mate.

On a road trip for the holidays I neglected to bring green tea so I picked this up out of convenience. I was impressed. It is a very solid grassy green and easy to make on the run. I have tried a few from this brand and overall I like what they do. You get a good value as well 50 bags for 10.00 or so. Not bad. Not having any experience with Matcha, I can’t speak to that aspect. I will say, the cloudy nature of the tea, the bright green color, and rich flavor make this a winner in my book. Not fancy and no bells or chimes ringing, but I find no fault in it.

I adore red velvet….and make a really good red velvet cupcake. Red Velvet fried chicken with mashed potatoes with a cream cheese ribbon is a staple in my house.
When I saw this tea, I got really excited and was like “Shut up and take my money!”
I brewed a cup as soon as I got it home but was not impressed and shelved it until now (because everyone needs tea at 2:30 in the morning).
I steeped two bags in a big ol’ mug for…a while. After about 5 minutes I started smelling a little bit of chocolate in the air. When I took my first sip, I was not real impressed. The flavor was not bad, it just does not scream red velvet to me. I did not taste very much chocolate, but real red velvet is not very chocolaty either.
I added a little vanilla coffee creamer (because that was what I could grab) in hopes that it might bring out the sweetness. It helped a little, but not much.
I will finish the can, but doubt that I would buy it again, at least not unless it was a lot cheaper.

Edit: I bought some on the little coffee mate shots in creamy chocolate. I threw one of those in there…..more delicious. Gives it a little more chocolate flavor. I would give it a 70 when prepared that way!

My husband gave me this tea for Christmas and I finally got around to having a cup (and then another) of this tea today.
I steeped it with 202* F water out of my Kuerig coffee maker and forgot about it. The good news is that although I steeped for over 10 minutes, the flavor was not too strong and there was no bitterness.
The first sip I took was sweet and had a nice vanilla flavor. I personally like very sweet and flavorful teas, but I would be able to drink this one straight if I had no honey and milk available.
I added about a teaspoon of honey and a french vanilla coffee creamer to bring out the vanilla flavor. It was pretty tasty.
I don’t think I would buy it again, only because I have several other teas that are similar in flavor, but if it was gifted to me or if it was available at a friends house, I would drink it for sure.

Very middling Early Grey that tries to make up for lackluster tea with alot of bergamot.

I had heard good things about The Republic of Tea, so when I saw their new chai blend for sale at Chapters, I decided to give the brand a try. 

This definitely is a different sort of chai. The bags have a strong and unique aroma – the spices really come through. They come through in the brewed tea as well, resulting in a ‘peppery’ taste – the result of the ginger in particular. In comparison, the rest of the tea isn’t very strong at all. It’s not as is the other flavours are completely dwarfed by the ginger, they simply aren’t there. The first sign was the almost total lack of colour (in a BLACK TEA). Even after several minutes of steeping (the tin does say ‘Traditionally steeped strong’), there’s only a weak indication of what could have been a good chai hiding somewhere underneath. 

The flavour of the tea is there if you look for it, but it seems to be cowering behind the mild bite of the spices.

I will have to try something different from The Republic of Tea next time, because this cup didn’t strike my fancy.

Picked this up while visiting a lovely friend in Oklahoma!

My quest for the perfect morning tea is ongoing, but so far nothing’s beaten Monk’s Blend. This is not an exception. It’s…huh. To be honest, I think I might just need to brew more tea leaves, because I’m using one teaspoon per cup and it tastes pretty much like water with a slightly savory coffee aftertaste. I might try 2 teaspoons per cup, as per the suggestion of the person who used 2 tea bags per cup. In the meantime, though…I’ll be keeping it to wake myself up with the yerba mate, but I am not impressed.

This is a delicious, decadent tasting tea! I like opening the tin, seeing the coco powder escaping from the bags, and smelling the rich chocolaty aroma.

It’s really close to good dark chocolate or straight coco powder, not a sweet artificial taste like with a swiss miss style hot chocolate powder or a hershey chocolate chip. More like the urgent, pure taste of a Ghirardelli dark chocolate chip, or adding rich coco powder to a recipe.

After all my raving about strong, straight dark chocolate, the truth is, I prefer this tea with a little milk. That makes the flavor more full to me, and it doesn’t need any sweetener. With a little milk, the back of my mouth and tongue get a really sweet chocolaty flavor all on their own. Without milk, it’s not bitter, but just a little flat and too blunt.

I really enjoy this tea, I’m trying it hot now on a rainy day, and I just got an idea to try it iced. If I could pull it off, that would be delicious too!

I don’t feel jittery after drinking this tea, but I’m not sure if I feel more energetic from the mate either. I’ll have to pay better attention and see.

I’m not a huge green tea fan, but this is interesting. It’s the first time I’ve had genmaicha – it tastes kind of like rice krispies! It has a subtle sweetness, roastiness, and not too much astringency. I got this in bags from World Market, but it looks like it might be available as bags or loose leaf under the name “Tea of Inquiry” from RoT.

Received this as a sample with their latest catalogue. So I figured I’d give it a shot. Turns out I really Liked it…a lot. I’m usually not a huge fan of ginger in anything UNLESS it’s done right and Republic of Teas did this one right. Perfect blend of peach and ginger. I might have to order

Red velvet cake is my favorite dessert, so when I saw this today at Whole Foods I had to buy the tin! I was a little hesitant because I haven’t always loved rooibos in the past, but – red velvet! in tea form! I am usually pleased with Republic of Teas, and they did not let me down.

I don’t think the tea smells overwhelmingly like cake, but the taste comes out after brewing. I cut open the teabags and used my infuser. I like large cups, and find I need 2 teabags from most of their teas. I steeped for 5 minutes, and I think it could even have gone a little longer.

The color is beautiful. After adding a splash of milk (1%) it did turn a slightly odd looking pink color. The taste is very smooth. I can taste vanilla, with a slight tang like cream cheese frosting. The chocolate taste is light (but that’s ok, because I find it light in the cake too!) There is a slight citrus flavor in the background. I finished my cup and had to hold myself back from immediately making more!

I think I’m going to have to give Rooibos teas another try. I always thought I disliked them, but I’ve recently realized that I actually dislike the hibiscus that was in the rooibos I had before!

The mint is mild and the tea is lovely, very refreshing, esp with a bit of honey.

I’ve been looking for a sweet non-fruity herbal tea to drink in the evenings. I just picked this up at the grocery store tonight, and it’s really yummy! It smells much sweeter than it tastes. The almond and rooibos flavors are most prominent to me. It must have sated my sweet tooth, because I also bought some cake at the store and I’m not interested in it anymore!

I’m glad I’m not the only one who did not quite enjoy this one. It was given to me when I visited the newly reopened coffee shop in town. Smelled good. Then I added water. It kinda reminds me of the friendship tea that I think all of us despise that you usually get at church Christmas bazaars. I tried to like it but it’s weak in flavor and black tea base. Tastes more like tang with cloves. I try not to be overly critical when given a tea, and tasting tea. I can stand most teas like most coffees even if they are not high quality, but this doesn’t quite reach the bar.

I saw this in Whole Foods before I saw anything about it…since I saw people say good things and I love cake, I kind of purposely just went back to get it…

O. M. G.

Adding the beetroot to color the tea more red is freakin’ genius, and just like in traditional red velvet you can’t taste it! It is delicious and chocolatey, sometimes I get a big taste of blackberry but that’s no problem.

I swear there’s even this slight tang to it like cream cheese frosting.

Entirely worth the ten bucks for the canister. And I have cake flavored vodka, can anyone say boozy tea latte when I actually buy milk sometime?