The Republic of Tea

Rediscovered this tea this holiday season. A really lovely tea that I enjoyed with my family. Even my sister who is new to the tea drinking scene loved it. Not always easy to find each year but well worth the time to find it.

I received this tea as part of a Christmas present from a friend who knows how much I love tea. I love Red Velvet & had high hopes for this tea. Luckily, it did not disappoint me!

Everyone saying it tastes like red velvet cake batter is right…it does. And the vanilla flavor leaves a hint of cream cheese frosting. I enjoyed this from the first sip.

Definitely adding this as a favorite to always have on hand. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Really delightful cuppa tea.

A little fruitier than I was expecting; it doesn’t REALLY taste like Red Velvet cake, but it works fine as a dessert tea on its own. I added a little sweetener, sea salt, and hot chocolate mix to (hopefully) bring out the chocolatey taste elements; they do make it sweeter, at least.

Adorable packaging but bland flavor. It’s a very basic black tea similar to any bagged tea from the grocery store. Almost impossible to find much flavoring otherwise, especially in the berry and sage department. Too weak for me to rate it higher or suggesting to purchase it. It does, however, have a cozy smell. For a memory recall, I first found this over 12 years ago now when working as an eighteen year old at Books A Million. I love their iced Blackberry Sage Italian Sodas with whipped cream and from working there began to get drawn to hot tea.

Well, yeah…
I remembered hating this tea, but a bag of it came with my RoT catalog so I brewed it anyway. Yep, I still hate it. Like drinking a melted lollypop.
I can’t stand red fruit teas. They’re all the same kool-aid and lollypops. Why even bother to put green tea in this one, apart from the health benefits of it I guess?… Blegh. I had to laugh when I saw that this was the freebie of choice in the catalog. The only thing worse would have been one of the hibiscus teas.
I guess free is free though- I should have passed this one on to someone else.

I’m not so sure about this one. I made a tea latte with two spoons of sugar. It’s okay, but it may be a bit too sweet for me. Next time I will try it without sugar.

Yet another free sample from The Republic of Tea! I’ve gotta be honest, I saw the words licorice root in the ingredients, and was immediately apprehensive. Not a big licorice fan. But it was free, and it smelled pretty nice in the sachet, so what the hell! Once I’d steeped it for five minutes, and added some sweetener, I was still a little concerned. However, after I added a bit of milk, I was pleasantly surprised! I bit on the fruity side with a lovely blend of spices! I like it! I might even order some at some point!

I am really surprised at all the other reviewers who didn’t like this too much. I wonder if those who tried the “free samples” somehow got stock that wasn’t very good? I suppose a promotion could do that whereby RoT put out a poor batch…

Anyhow, RoT isn’t really the kind of company I usually go to for tea: they’re just too industrial, run-of-the-mill–ish, pedestrian for my usual taste.

However, I love this tea. I’ve been drinking it for a couple of years now in loose leaf. I do make it pretty strong (an overstuffed ball infuser for 10+ minutes)

I find the flavor rich and complex with a satisfying spice. It has a natural sweetness and doesn’t overpower with cinnamon. Instead, it has cardamom, clove, and bergamot flavors that enhance the straight forward black tea.

I am hopelessly addicted to Tea of Good Tidings. Everything about it says I would’t like it. There is just so much going on with the dense fruit and huge amalgam of flavors. Then the powerful black tea rises up on the nose and punches me right in the face!

But it all works delectably together. It is rich and complex without being synthetic. I’m rather surprised that the enormous RoT conglomerate is able to put out this sublime gift. I am usually more taken by boutique teas. This is impressive, and I always have a cup or two a day.

I keep my pantry full of it so I can drink it all year long.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Gaaaaaaah, Summer head cold.

That’s the last time I shake hands with a child.

Fighting back the congestion with pu-erh.

I can’t taste anything, sadly.

And I have to chant a vespers service this evening alone.

In a recent video with a sheng pu-erh, David of Verdant Teas recommended using less leaf with a sheng than one would use with other teas. This surprised me. Most everyone, especially the hard core yixing people, are all about cramming as much leaf into the pot as they can.

So, I decided to try this leaf again using about half of what I’d been using in the past.

I am now wishing I had my order from Verdant back so I could steep the Farmer’s Coop sheng this way instead of how I did.

Steeped this way, most people wouldn’t find, at least this particular, sheng tea all that unusual. Most of the notes here are similar to lighter black teas, oolongs or Darjeeling type teas. Almost all the wooly, wild, sharp notes I tend to associate with sheng are gone.

I’m on something like my 16th steep of this batch of leaves.

I really have to wonder what was going on with this (and other sheng) tea back over the winter when I keep getting such sharp, wooly, camphorous steeps.

Cup after cup this tea has been kind and sweet and I’m still on <30 second steeps.

This tea continues to rise in my esteem. As it has aged a few months it has mellowed considerably. The first steep is still quite sharp, but that’s to be expected, I think. But after the leaves are fully hydrated and opened the resulting steeps are almost sweet.

After my experience with the Wild Arbor last week, it occurred to me that my concerns with this tea maybe were over blown. So, I unpacked it from the storage arrangement I’d created and decided to steep it again.

I’m into the second steeping now and I’m chuckling to myself that just a few weeks ago I thought this tea needed more age. This second steeping is downright soft for sheng — maybe I made some kind of error the last time I made it.

This is actually really good and has encouraged me to re-approach the Wild Arbor with less leaf and more respect.

Aaaaand we’re back.

I am brewing this up in my brand spanking new gaiwan. Actually I’m brewing it up in my brand spanking new 1 and 2/3’s gaiwan. My sister-in-law got me a gorgeous little number and the first one shipped with a broken saucer, so I have two cups, two lids and one saucer. I’m using the saucerless one to do the steep and strain and I’m drinking from the complete set. (no cups)

So far, this pu-erh doesn’t completely wow me. I want there to be something soft, round and mellow to balance out the sharp notes. Maybe I should wrap it up and age it for a few months or a year.

Info from RoTea received! Wow, that was fast. Their customer service is kind of awesome.

Second steeping reminds me a great deal of the Pu Er 2002 Naka (Lahu) which I got from CS a few years ago. That taste of hot cabin wood, combined with a deep loam and wet stone.

Again, not for the novice, this. But then, sheng isn’t for the novice in general, come to think of it.

I may have to commit heresy on a later occasion and subject this stuff to a marathon steeping with fresh leaf just to see how the two differ.

I am a bit sad I can’t provide more information on this tea. RoTea seems to be unaware that they sell it. Once I get info from them, I’ll update.

The dry leaf (still in big chunks of the original cake) has very little odor. Surprisingly little, in fact.

But the wet leaf is potent, sharp, dank and smokey. There are strong notes of mesquite as well as that classic hot-cabin-wood-in-the-summer-sun smell I associate with raw pu-erh.

That smokey bite is just in the leaf odor, however, the cup itself retains none of it, leaving behind a dank, musty, tingling bog of mouth drying complexity.

This is one of those teas you don’t want to make for friends who are novice tea people. They will think you are utterly bonkers for wanting to drink this. Me? I’m spell bound. Just a few sips and I can feel the grand heavenly cycle beginning to churn.

I wish I’d made this at 7:30AM I might have been in better shape to face the day.

I got this as part of a stackable set of three tea canisters as a gift. The canisters are lovely. Rich colors, foil-like shine… beautiful. Comfort and Joy was the first tea I tried in the trio.

When I opened the container, the first thing I got was a very strong aroma of a spice I couldn’t recognize. Licorice root is listed as an ingredient, but I’ve had licorice root before and this was not it. Maybe it was one of the other “natural flavors” the RoT uses. Just because I didn’t recognize it didn’t make it off-putting, however, and so I brewed it up following the instructions on the container. As it brews, it smells marvelous. I could hardly wait for it to be done, it smelled so good and produced such an attractive clear amber liquor. When it was time, I sipped. But wait, had I missed the cup? ? I sipped again. Oh, oh… wait a minute, no, there was definitely something like a hot tea in my mouth, but it had no flavor. I held it in my mouth for a minute, and began to taste a… little… bit… of… apple—not much, but a little bit, then I got a little bite from one of the spices in there, but not much else. It was very weak, very watery, and as it sat, increasingly bitter even though the bag had been removed long before. RoT says on the canister for this product that “black tea leaves create a substantial base for this holiday infusion,” but I don’t see it that way. If there is black tea in there, it’s such inferior tea that it can’t stand up to brewing. The other ingredients, actual as well as “natural” don’t seem to survive brewing either. It’s not bad, it’s just blehhh. Yeah, okay, that’s bad. Anyway. Each of the canisters in this holiday sampler boasts, “Steeping is easy,” and it is. Getting a good infusion out of it with this product, however, seems to be difficult.

Here is another one of those BEAUTIFUL Republic of Tea holiday canisters, the kind that is all shiny and alluring with rich stimulating colors, full of promises about the wonder of what’s inside… What’s inside is a wonder, all right.

The first thing any of us does (or should be doing) when we open a container of tea is inhale deeply. And so as soon as I broke the lovely red seal on this lovely gleaming red and gold canister and lifted the top was breathe deep. Well. The last time I smelled anything like this was in the procedure room in an emergency room I used to work in. The aroma was a cross between disinfectant and cast material. No kidding, it was really unpleasant and almost funny. What must this stuff taste like, I asked myself, knowing that only brewing a cup of this tea was going to satisfy my curiosity. I followed brewing instructions as given on the container, and throughout the brew I was assailed by that same medicinal smell. The liquor comes up a lovely amber, though, and crystal clear. But that smell… I fished out the bag, gave it a moment or two to cool down an eence, and took a sip. There was the smell, but I couldn’t taste anything except a very unpleasant foreground bitterness. I didn’t taste vanilla, I didn’t taste cinnamon, I didn’t even taste that smell. All I got from it was bitterness, with no other flavors or even body to back it up. The directions advise adding a “splash” of milk, so I did. The tea held its beautiful color without greying out, but the flavor did not improve. As a last resort, I dropped in about a half spoonful of sugar, but it didn’t do anything to improve it, either. I nursed the tea until the cup was half gone, and by that time it was down to room temperature. By then, I thought maybe I could pick out some cinnamon from the otherwise bitter emptiness of this concoction, but nothing could redeem it by that time and I poured what was left of it down the sink. Now I have to figure out what to do with the rest of the canister (it was a gift from a very good and well-meaning friend). Maybe some hospital wants it?