Cait

Oh, this is amazing! It’s all smoky and sweet and complicated, and it’s light without being at all weak, if that makes sense. It smelled wonderful as soon as I ripped open the shiny vacuum-sealed sample packet, and it just kept getting better. I’m going back for a third steep now with my hopes very high….

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WOW.

Perhaps it is merely sense memory, but I swear this tea is textured like a perfectly ripe pear.

This is so good!

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So…this is a mug of Love. And when I brewed it up the first time, I oversteeped and it came out murky and dark red — and I don’t know about you, but for me the thought of menstrual blood was kind of unavoidable. The tea didn’t smell in any way bloody, but I definitely had to nerve myself up for that first sip of hot, wet, blood-colored love! And while it turns out to taste sort of woodsy-spicy and a bit mild, context is so much; I really don’t think I can give this one a fair rating, or even a more thorough review.

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This is a very assertive tea! Right up front, this tea says, Hello there, you’re drinking some mighty fine tea, aren’t you?

I gave this tea a rinse and then steeped it at my standard cooled-for-greens temperature (I don’t have a thermometer, so this is all approximate) for twenty seconds, because I’d read the directions from Life In Teacup (near boiling, twenty seconds) and then failed to fully follow them. I was nervous about the short steep time until I smelled the leaves steeping: they smelled extremely strong! The first steep was a very light yellow-green and it tasted a little light as well, probably because I’d used the cooler water, but it was definitely tasty. I was a little worried because it was a tad rough-feeling in spite of the lightness, so I went back and checked the directions, which is when I noticed my temperature mistake! Second steep was hotter water for another twenty seconds and the color was a noticeably darker yellow. This time the tea was smoother and had an exciting sort of peppery taste. Third steep like the second, and the tea is less peppery and more fruity. It still has that strong, dramatic tea taste over everything!

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Huh. This is, indeed, deliciously blueberry, especially in the smell as it steeps but also in the flavor. However—

Did I do something wrong to the white tea underneath it? I haven’t had much white tea, but the one word that everyone uses over and over for it is “delicate”. This tea doesn’t taste delicate, so I can only conclude that it is delicate: I have been too rough, and the tea is giving as good (or bad) as it got.

Definitely good, as I’d expect from Republic of Tea. Fruity and sweet without being cloying. It’s no Blackberry Sage, but if I needed a fruity black tea, I wouldn’t say no to this one.

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Okay, I’m not ashamed to say that I was deeply intimidated by this tea. When my TeaFrog box arrived, the only thing I smelled when I opened it was chocolate and spice — and it was all coming from this one sample bag. I wrapped the sample bag (unopened) in a second bag and put that in a cannister, and still that entire corner of my kitchen was overwhelmed by chocolate and spices. I made myself a cup tonight because it seemed like a good night for it, but also in a bit of self-defense!

I was surprised, then, to find that the steeping tea smelled hardly of chocolate at all. The predominant spice when dry had been ginger; brewing, the peppercorns met up with the ginger and began taking over. I was too impatient to steep it for very long, and began sipping it from a spoon right away. The tea itself is a reddish-brown, not dark but rather murky in a way that matches the spicy scent.

Hot, it tastes almost entirely of peppercorns, but it’s very smooth underneath (is this where the chocolate comes in?). There’s a peppery tingle on the tongue and a gingery tingle at the back of the mouth — this is not a tea that’s sitting still to be drunk! And I was quite right to wait until I had an evening to savor it, because this is a tea that demands my full attention while drinking. As it’s cooling, there’s a little more chocolate flavor coming through, almost like the peppercorns, having made their point, have decided to graciously back off a step and let the other ingredients have their say.

ETA: A second steeping, at five and a half minutes, brings out rather more chocolate; I would still call this a pepper tea with chocolate and ginger flavors, but it’s an interesting change. It’s also distinctly darker from the longer steeping.

And now the quandary: I want more of this tea, but I’m not sure I dare acquire an entire tin of it lest my entire kitchen wind up smelling as though my spice rack and my cocoa powder just staggered in together after a wild night on the town.

Slightly bitter yet tasty underneath: yes, I’m at work on Saturday morning, but I really do enjoy my job. Also I’m drinking tea.

Okay, I think I’ve figured out the trick of this tea, and that’s to let it steep and steep and steep until you’re sure that it’s going to be wickedly bitter.

I first tried this tea years ago (looking at the possibilities, probably 2004, so, yes, years ago — time is scary on occasion) when I went to MediaWest*Con every year. (Now I actually run a local con in the same timeframe, so I haven’t been in quite a while.) One of the room dealers sold products from Cyphre Voudou and I picked up a bag of this tea on a whim, along with some other things like a calendar of woodcut leaves and soap shaped like a tombstone. The calendar was pretty, the soap is still my preferred brand, and the tea, the tea! The tea was indeed ambrosia. I nursed that little bag of tea along for almost a year, and every cup was wonderful. And I kept the little tag on it just in case I ever went back to MWC so I could find that dealer, until it occurred to me that perhaps since then they’d put up a website. And they had! And I ordered this wonderful tea from them! And it was…okay.

sigh

This is just as disappointing as you think. Did I imagine it? Has their blend changed? Did I just get a really good packet the first time, or a bum one this time? Heavily oversteeped I do get some of the spicy-sweet fruitiness I remember (and, in fact, none of the bitterness you’d expect from abusing an innocent tea this way) but this is in no way the tea of the gods I know I had before. It’s not a bad tea! But I can’t help feeling disappointed.

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Oh, this is exactly what I wanted tonight! It’s a very light, gentle fruit tea, neither sweet nor sour but perfect for sipping at the end of a long day.