The Republic of Tea

I had a cup of this while out shopping for my wife’s birthday. I had access to some bags of this at work (sometimes folks will leave tea for the general break room population). I made a cup before heading out for the day. It wasn’t anything special. I guess there was a peachy note throughout, but I didn’t taste any ginger whatsoever. It was a good cup for a cold, rainy day, but I’d not go out of my way in getting any for my inventory/desk.

Happy New Year everyone!
Thanks so much for sending this along, AJ Rimmer!  Most Steepsterers who tried it were always raving about it, so I’m happy to try it.  But now that I actually look at the tasting notes, it seems to get mixed reviews. I know AJ loves it anyway! However, it’s not my favorite.  There is a flavor that seems off to me.  More like a powdery fragrance than any sort of dessert.  The powdery fragrance is more present than the lemon.  I’m not sure what it could be in the ingredients… the second steep does seem to tame the ‘powdery’ flavor a bit. But I’ve had better lemon teas.  It’s fine with me not to have something I feel I need to stock up on all the time.  haha.  Glad to try this, glad that it’s gone now.  Sipdown!
Steep #1 // 20 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled  // 4 minute steep   
2019 Sipdowns: 92 (This plus Zen’s Rooibos Chai)

I don’t think I’m going to make my sipdown goal of 100 this year. I tried! Same goal for 2020. I’m drinking some oldies teas today – but still delicious. Maybe some fresher tea tomorrow to celebrate the new year!

Thanks to AJRimmer for a sample of this tea (can’t remember what day # it was)
As I was driving the other day (with this tea in hand) I was thinking that it is a very British tea and probably one that Rimmer would have enjoyed. (Red Dwarf is one of my favourite shows)

This is quite similar to Tazo’s lemon cake tea. I don’t get quite as many cakey notes but it is still a delicious lemony and zesty tea. I had this with soy milk and enjoyed it a lot. I brewed 2 tea bags ~30 minutes in very hot water (cooled down a bit by the soy milk)

Yum! I generally hate rooibos, but I really love this blend. The flavor in the mouth is more of a dingy lemon, but as you start to swallow, there’s a distinctly ‘cakey’ note to it. It’s very much like a lemon cupcake, which was a pleasant surprise.

First Impression: creates a murky green brew. I brewed it at a green tea temperature. Could only get one brew out it.
Taste: A Strong orange Citrus flavor with a light floral note to it. The citrus flavor is the most prominent. It was rather lovely.
Better than I had expected. It was good but it did not do anything for colds/health benefits.
I would not buy it for that purpose although Republic of Tea does make other teas for that, this one did not hit the mark for that purpose.

It was something that I liked while it lasted but it is not something that I would purchase again. It was okay nothing exceptional.

This was an ok breakfast blend. I enjoyed but not as much as I expected to.

So… Why the flavored teas lately, some may wonder. Well, my nephew has been staying with me (family crisis) and he likes flavored teas.

We both enjoyed this one. As one noted, it was very bready. It was creamy, vanilla and caramel notes, bread pudding-like taste. Not overly sweet. Recommended dessert tea.

I drank a cup of this with milk during a long car journey. The main flavor is the black tea, which was bold and sweet. I think it was pretty nice. I would drink it again, but wouldn’t go out of my way to grab it. I had some terrible cheap black tea at a hotel the next morning, so this was good in comparison.

Well this tea is rather wonderful. It’s bready and light. It doesn’t need milk. The name fits it quite well. I would love to have more if I come across it again!

I love Tazo’s glazed lemon loaf, but I recently finished my last box of it, and I hoped this might fill the void. I’m happy to say that it does! The flavor is very similar. It’s a light, sweet, cakey lemon. It seriously tastes like lemon cake. I used two bags for my large mug, and the flavor is perfect. Not sour at all. I’m glad I have so many bags of this!

Thanks to AliceG for this sample. I made it, but then got too lazy to get up and drink it, so I had it cold the next morning. I don’t usually drink black teas cold, but I liked this one! The tea was rather light without bitterness, and the mango, while not exactly like fresh mango, was tasty enough.

My daily tea. Very strong flavor of ginseng. Bitter, but in a good way.

Surprised to see the low ratings for this tea. I sampled it yesterday at World Market and thought it was delicious. And that’s coming from someone who’s not exactly a fan of bagged black tea, sage, or berry flavoring. But the combination is really well executed in this tea.

The tea begins with a very natural blackberry flavor balanced with a mellow black tea base. The sage isn’t as easy to detect because its not up front and center. Instead it makes an appearance towards the end of the sip to impart a subtle herbal note that contrasts nicely with the fruitiness.

Bet this would make an awesome cold brew/iced tea.

I’ve been so busy I haven’t posted in ages (missed ya’ll!), but I just got a whole bunch of tea in and now I need to keep track. Normally I wouldn’t order Republic of Tea (they’re pricey for what you’re actually getting) but I need teabags for work, and I remembered liking this flavor a lot in college. Wow, my taste buds have changed since then! Stash’s Peach is better than this and way cheaper.

This is the other free sample RoT threw into my family’s order. I’ve enjoyed Tulsi teas before, but this one is pretty bad. The tea has a strong fake rose scent for some reason. It tastes like fake roses and over-steeped basil. Health teas are the worst.

RoT sent a sample of this with an order my family made. I’m not into wellness teas, so I wasn’t expecting a lot, but this was actually all right. It’s a sort of savory chocolate flavor that tastes better with a little sugar added. Apparently this tea is made of mushrooms, but the main flavor comes from the cocoa powder. I wouldn’t buy this, but one cup was fine. I’ve only had one other tea that contained mushrooms, and I enjoyed both, not that the mushrooms seem to contribute much flavor. Not sure I would want them to though.

Decent diuretic but flavor is of fennel/licorice.

This one is from my wonderful exchange with AliceG. It was so hard to decide what to try first! I’ve quite enjoyed RoT’s rooibos in the past, but fruity red rooibos blends often are a bit strange, so I didn’t know how to feel leading up to this one. The first sip tasted weird, so I added some extra sugar, and that seemed to fix it. The flavor is primarily rooibos with only hints of a fruity flavor. I burned my tongue on my food, so I’m afraid I can’t provide much more detail other than that it tastes like rooibos with a bit of tangy flavoring. This one is all right, but I’d choose their Good Hope Vanilla rooibos over this one.

Very faint flavor. If you steep it longer or use another teabag, it does not improve it. It is merely ok, but better than many other Republic of Tea offerings.

Sadly discontinued … This was my favorite tea for many years. Just wanted to say for anyone else who’s missing it – I recently got turned on to Republic of Tea Milk Oolong, and although it isn’t really the same, somehow it feels familiar, and helps fill the aching void in my heart left by the absence of Republic of Tea Persimmon White Tea. Give it a try if you’re still carrying a torch!

I’m super intrigued by these “high caffeine” teas – stuff like this or what Zest Tea carries. I’ve seen tea/coffee hybrids before and those don’t appeal to me. I just DO NOT want coffee. So, when a company says they can achieve that caffeine level without coffee at all? Well, that speaks to me…

I will say that I didn’t feel super caffeinated after finishing this one. However, I also didn’t feel tired/sluggish or anything like that either. Just, like, level and alert. So I guess that could be taken as an indicator that it worked but I don’t know that it’s definitive feeling enough for me.

Flavour wise, I enjoyed this a lot though – it tastes exactly like toast with a cinnamon sugar spread on top, just with a hint/undertone of apple as well. Still – very accurate to the namesake and that’s something that I always feel like needs to be praised when I company achieves that so well. That has always been something that has been important to me – if you’re going to name the tea after a specific flavour/food then it damn well better taste like it.