The Republic of Tea

RoT’s 12 Days of Sipping, day 6. It’s a pretty pink. And it’s tart, as expected—thanks, hibiscus! Not for me.

Got two sachets of this in RoT’s 2020 12 Days of Sipping thing. I had one plain and one with oat creamer and stevia. Both were nice, although the flavour was a bit too muted by the creamer. The tea’s fragrance is better than the flavour. I tend to like really bold flavours, so I had high expectations upon sticking my nose in my steaming mug. Ah, well. It’s nice, especially for a bagged tea, but not much better than nice. The spices do make it warm and comforting, though, so it lives up to at least half its name.

I grabbed a single sachet of this from a recent tea box. It has no ingredients listed, so I didn’t know what to expect, but it tastes quite desserty, rather like cookies. I’d usually add milk to a tea like this, but it doesn’t need it. Nice black base, nice cookie taste. I’d drink this again. I really, really enjoy it actually.

Got two sachets of this in RoT’s 12 Days of Sipping advent calendar thing. Drank one plain and one with oat creamer and stevia. Both were good, but the sweet ‘n’ creamy one was better. It’s all peach, no real ginger to speak of. Were I willing to take the time and less lazy than I am, adding freshly grated ginger to the steep and straining it out before drinking would’ve really improved the boldness of this blend.

There were two sachets of this in RoT’s 2020 advent calendar. I should’ve saved one to steep differently. As it is, I drank it plain and it was pretty good: clean and smooth, not cloying. It’s the kind of flavour that calls for some sort of creamer and sweetener, though.

Predominantly spearmint. Can’t really taste anything else. As spearmint teas go, this one’s pretty good.

Mild candy cane flavour with a hint of something else: something papery, maybe the tea bag? If you like peppermint, there are much better peppermint teas out there.

This free tea bag arrived with my holiday Replublic of Tea catalog. It is very reminiscent of the Red Hot Cinnamon candy. A little to artificial for my palate but I could enjoy my single cup this morning.

Bought at Wegmans. I first enjoyed this in a Republic of Tea sampler last year. A nice rooibos tea with hint of vanilla. Good for an afternoon cuppa.

The description of the tea makes me feel virtuous drinking it. Very light with no strong flavors to like or hate.

Bumping up the rating on this one. It satisfies like a mug of hot cocoa, without all the sugar and calories. The longer it steeps, the better. My only critique is that I wish the chicory and carob base were a little stronger, to boost the roasty, umami aspect of it a bit more.

Got this in my Sips By box this month. They’ve cottoned on to the fact that I like chocolate-flavored caffeine-free options with roasted notes, and have decided to inundate me with them. It’s getting a little boring, to be fully honest. Maybe I’ll retake the profile quiz.
I appreciate that this one at least also has coconut flavoring, to provide some relief from the chocolate monotony. The coconut tastes genuine and is well-balanced with the cocoa notes.
The RoT’s offerings usually taste watery/ weak to me overall though, and this one is no exception. I suspect that they underleaf/ undersize their sachets.
It’s OK, but nothing I would commit to buying a whole canister of.

A sample tea bag arrived with my Republic of Tea fall catalog. Its spicy and warm flavors were surprisingly good to a non-chai lover.

I tried as part of the The Republic of Tea’s Day of Tea Assortment. Good black tea with bergamot shining through

Tried as part of the The Republic of Tea’s Day of Tea Assortment. Great choice for a black tea, bergamot really shines.

Very faint flavors of apple cider and cinnamon. I use two tea bags but the flavor just isn’t there. My husband thought we should use it, just pour 6 oz of water max. Going through teas I bought while I was working long hours and assessing what I should buy again.

I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea to buy. I guess I was overcome with… something… at the prospect of pumpkin flavored tea that departed from the overplayed spice category. I recall not liking their pumpkin spice tea and maybe figured that they couldn’t possibly go wrong twice and must have learned from the first time. Maybe I was just too excited to be out of the house and doing any kind of Halloween shopping, even though World Market’s Halloween AND pumpkin merch/products were a fraction of what they have been in years past. The checkout clerk confirmed it wasn’t just perception, they had indeed reduced the amount of merch ordered because of the uncertainty of Covid. I’m mildly crushed that the pandemic is chipping away at the Halloween boost I use to get me through the rest of the end of year holidays.
Tea. This tea brings me no joy and tastes of bitter disappointment. Fitting for a 2020 vintage. There is a sour flatness towards the end of the sip, some mild vague spice and maybe a hint of maple in the alkaline finish. I have also noted the past few days that if there is a cup of bad tea in front of me, I will mindlessly drink it and mentally complain with each sip of sorrow or repulsion, trying to force myself past it despite having a cupboard full of wonderful tea waiting for me. I’m doing it again with this cup. I miss the $11 I wasted on this tea. It could have been spent on a much more delightful cup.

I bought this tea for late summer and early fall at Wegman’s. Very spicy with cinnamon and chili. Loved it.

A freebie teabag from the 2018 San Francisco International Tea Festival. I’m having a horrible migraine today and thought something like this would be fairly inoffensive since my GI goes cray-cray at the same time my head goes boom. I couldn’t rip open the outer package to the teabag and had to get the kitchen scissors, which cut the top off of the interior teabag, so I had to empty all the contents into one of my own fillable teabags, which was slighly more effort than I wanted to put forth while feeling like this, but meh. It was done and the tea was steeped.

I really just smell grapefruit and orange zest coming off the cup. That is mostly what I taste, too, but then, I’ve never had milk thistle and am not sure what it should taste like. The grapefruit is a lot lighter tasting than I usually get when it is used in teas, and I really like that (I’ve started to warm up to it as a flavor presense as of late, even though I don’t care for the plain fruit). It’s like there is a light, milky, slightly floral/herbaceous note that was tempering the grapefruit from being too abrasive, and it actually worked really well. If I was going to drink a grapefruit-flavored tea, I actually think this would be my choice. It’s coming off a little more as a generic citrus zest note, but very pleasant.

Ya… I dig this! Not something I’d ever think to try so I’m glad I got the chance to try it!

Very little flavor in this tea. I steeped to the required time and no flavor. I put in 2 sachets and steeped the required time, just the faintest flavor of cinnamon. Not like a good quality cinnamon spice but more like a very cheap candy. Could not taste vanilla at all. I threw it out; I hate to be wasteful but that was just a bad mistake. Republic of Tea has great label art and generally lousy tea.

I recently took advantage of a sale to get some of The Republic of Tea’s Ginger Peach tea bags, and bought this on impulse. I was pleasantly surprised. It is quite sweet on its own and not overpowered by spices. I would buy this again as a rival to my usual Pumpkin Chai from David’s Tea.

Very thin flavor for being a “Double Dark Chocolate.” The last cup I had, I put 3 teabags in my cup and steeped fro the full seven minutes as recommended on the label. Still thin. Yes it has a cocoa flavor, it has a chocolate flavor, and as another reviewer said it also tastes like dirt (must’ve gone flying off of a horse or a motorcycle like I have to recognize that). Republic of Tea has amazing labels but the tea generally just isn’t as good as other brands.

This is better than I remember. Not anything spectacular, but certainly not something I need to avoid (as I’ve been doing). A little tart, maybe from the cranberry flavor, but mostly an orange rooibos.