Original Blend

As a kid, I used to drink Lipton only when I was sick, or on rare occasions doused with sugar. My Grandpap reintroduced me to tea many years later, drinking Lipton, and occasionally bringing out Canadian Red Rose tea he would get when visiting his cousin in Toronto. He claimed that the Canadian Red Rose tea was better than the Red Rose sold in the US. So we would drink it, and I must admit that it really is better. So we would talk about almost everything, and he would play his Big Band music, watch British comedies and mysteries, and we would drink this tea. Paps is no longer with us, but I will always cherish the memories, and his influence on my life—and the tea!! :))

I usually drink this tea plain and steeped at 3:00-3:30, it is rather smooth, but bland when compared to better grades of tea. As an off the shelf supermarket tea, it is my favorite. If I steep it longer, sometimes I’ll add a dash of milk to soften it a little. I still drink this tea on occasion-once or twice a week sometimes-and remember Paps. Tonight I added a little bit of sugar like I used to years ago.

Tea drinking is an experience that should be fun and relaxing. If I rate this tea based on that and all the great memories, I’d have to give it 100. Based on flavor, it is about 61 to 64.

During the Holidays, however you celebrate them, remember to have a special cup of tea with loved ones, and create new memories; but, also try to remember all the positive people and memories that have influenced your life! :))

Cupped: Wed, December 14, 2011. Reviewed: Thu, December 15. 2011.

Pretty standard and not much to say other than a black plain bagged tea. It’s not unpleasant and doable in a pinch. It’s just not memorable or very bold or special either.

Haha restaurant tea….sigh

At least I found a place here in Toronto that brews marriage frere so that’s on the list of places to go soon :)

My boss drinks this by the bucket full iced, and it’s agreeable. He gave two boxes of this. Although, they were opened but full, so I have to wonder if he’s collecting the included seasonal figurines that are inexplicably absent. =D

I woke up this morning in a panic: today is our holiday party at work, and I’d forgotten to make the peanut butter fudge last night. So guess what I did this morning…

Fudge is now cooling (and it turned out ugly, but rather tasty, and once it’s cut into little squares nobody’s looking at it anyway, right?)), and I’m working on the pot that I set up in Chloe last night whilst today’s 52teas sampler is brewing (it’s a new one for me!!).

I think that frenchvanilla sent me these bags (thank you bushels!)…I’ve been hearing all sorts of things about this brand, and how popular it is. My response was basically “really? I’ve never heard of them before”. But I am from the Land of Lipton Iced Tea, so that shouldn’t be surprising.

I find this to be a very solid black tea. It’s not astringent at all, and I’m detecting some notes of vanilla and nuts. Very smooth and lovely!

I couldn’t resist picking this up at the store: 20 bags for $1.37 on clearance! This is a nice little black tea that really perks up with milk and honey. This is a nice change of pace from the flavored teas I’ve been having lately.

I have a mixed relationship with Red Rose’s Black Tea. On the one hand, this is the stuff my father drank when I was growing up, and sampling his cups of tea were a major part of what convinced me that tea was gross and for grownups – something I didn’t conquer until after a trip to England! On the other hand, I LOVED the little figurines that came in each box, and I wish I still had them because I think they’re cute and fun.

So tea = meh, ugh, yuck. (But I haven’t had it in ten+ years; I’m sure if I drank it now I’d be able to appreciate the flavor more.)
Packaging/promotional goods = AWESOME.

So this morning, I woke up 3 times, first at 5am and then at 6:30 and finally at 7:40 when I realized that I was going to be really late for my lab today unless I took the bus that came in like 15 minutes. So I just dressed in whatever was in sight and picked up my bag and headed out the door in less than 10 minutes from waking up. It was an awful way to wake up. When I got to school, I was desperate for something to drink so I picked this up at the cafe. It was brisk, light, and slightly lemony. It isn’t something I would enjoy in a daily basis though, but hey it had me awake by the time I reached my lab, so it did its job.

Red Rose Orange Pekoe and Pekoe Cut Black Tea really should have been the first tea that I reviewed here, since this was the tea of my childhood.

—Childhood? you ask. Just how young was I?

There’s a funny story there. It started with my first job: I spent the summer I was fifteen working for my aunt who owned a stable. The trainer, the barn manager, and all of the other stablehands were adults, and they all drank coffee. Since I was a young’un, they’d rinse out the coffee pot, refill it with plain water, and point me at the small stash of cocoa in the back of the office. Unsurprisingly, this was a real pain for everyone, and eventually I just took a cup of coffee, dumped in terrifying amounts of sugar and non-dairy creamer, and decided that it tasted pretty much the same (the water had never gotten particularly non-coffee-flavored) so what was the difference, right? And hey, I was a teenager, and if all of that caffeine made me jittery, nobody noticed a thing.

And then, at the end of summer, I left on vacation with my family. First day of vacation, we’re at the beach, of course it’s awfully bright. Second day, still bright, the headache is really setting in. I’m gulping lemonade by the bucketful and trying desperately to explain this agony to my mother. My mother, the caffeine-drinker of my immediate family, recognizes these symptoms. She extracts the story of the cocoa-coffee from me and suggests I go cold turkey. I explain the agony a little more. Since it is a shame to waste a vacation on withdrawal, she brews me some coffee. Third day, I spend the morning bounding gleefully across the sand dunes, then seek out my mother for another caffeine hit.

Let’s try weaning you off slowly, she suggests, and makes me tea. This tea, in fact. I doctor it up like the coffee with sugar and actual milk and am amazed to discover that not only does my headache go away, but this tastes good. I keep drinking it.

We get home from vacation. I keep drinking it.

(I go to college and shift up to coffee, then to expresso beans, then to caffeinated water. I don’t sleep much.)

In grad school, I return to my tea. I have, by that point, had many teas on many outings, but none of them are morning tea. Morning tea is Red Rose with milk and a bit of sugar.

Eventually, as I dropped out of grad school and began commuting to an office in the mornings, I let go of my childhood morning tea. But still, I remain fond and nostalgic. In my mind, this tea is served in at the kitchen table in a brown ceramic mug with the string of the teabag wrapped once around the handle; it’s milky smooth, not too sweet, extremely tasty, and just the right sipping temperature the entire time.

And yes, I still have fifteen or twenty of the ridiculous figurines. Somehow, more than a third of them are polar bears. Make of that what you will.

Great black tea for all-day drinking. I could have a cup of this any time and prepared pretty much anyway. Dependable, quality taste from a trusted brand.

When I was little, a family friend used to bring me the little figurines from his boxes of Red Rose tea.

I’ve been going through some rough times, and haven’t been feeling the best. My more expensive teas have just been set aside for now, I don’t want to waste them. I came across one of my little figurines in a recent move, and so I picked up a box of this for nostalgia’s sake.

So now I am sitting here, with a little sandcastle in my hand, sipping this tea. It’s your basic store-variety black tea, nothing astounding…but it’s familiar. My husband was thrilled when I opened the box. He caught a whiff, and it was familiar to him, too. I guess everyone knows someone who has had this tea in their cabinet.

I added a bit of 1% milk and a packet of sugar to this. Settled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, and two purring kitties beside me. Maybe this can heal my heart.

First, thank you Queenoftarts for sending this to me! A nice, non-bitter, easy going bagged black tea. I like it better than lipton’s black tea. Works nicely with sugar and milk. Should have tried this years ago :)

After an absolutely lovely brisk October Sunday of brunch with friends, a living room blanket fort with my daughter, dinner of burgers (and dessert of pie!) with some family, a rousing tutorial round of Settlers of Catan and my babiest girl drifting off to the Land of Nod in the easiest and most cuddly fashion, I could think of no better ending than staying up until 2:00 A.M., working from home as I do.
Oh, sure, there are oodles of fancier picks in the pantry, but good old Red Rose, with its aroma as familiar as leather or wood smoke, seemed to fit the bill. Steeped with water that was however hot the kettle made it and for some indeterminate amount of time, it always manages to taste the same.
And with one sip, I’m being propelled through the sunshine and over the Great Plains with 32 metric tonnes of titanium, electricty and the miracle of flight. Between 2001 and 2006, my husband and I did a whooole lot of flying back and forth between Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver and Whitehorse, and Red Rose tea is the tea served on Air Canada flights. I’d been a coffee girl since that fateful grade 8 skiing trip that introduced me to the wonders of that black gold, but for some reason I always went for tea on interprovincial flights. It’s a very strong sense memory.
What does it smell like?
Red Rose tea.
What does it taste like?
Red Rose tea.
Is it delicious?
It makes me feel like I’m flying. That’s delicious enough.

I picked up a box of this tea at random one day when I was shopping. I remembered seeing it in my grandma’s cupboard even though I don’t have any memory of her ever drinking tea, but that’s another story.

This is the tea I go for if I want a simple cup of tea with some lemon in it. I boil the water, throw a lemon slice and tea bag into the mug and steep it for about 5 minutes. It’s been an excellent cup of tea for days when I need a pick me up but don’t want a milky tea. I also drink this if feeling under the weather.

Overall it’s nothing spectacular but it’s a good cup of tea for what it is.

This is the default brew of the diners and basic restaurants in my town. Thus, I’ve had it a hundred different times all pretty much served the same way. In a scalding hot metal tea pot that is sure to leak upon pouring and burn your hands. If I’m lucky they bring it to me without the bag in so I can at least be aware of the steeping time and maybe they bring a pitcher of milk. Usually I’m stuck with creamo at the table and sugar or splenda if I want to sweeten it, as I usually do for I find it sort of bitter.

I guess I can’t say that I’ve actually tasted this tea pure so maybe I am selling it short. I associate this with coffee mugs of milky sugary heat that I’d have one after another while chain smoking and gabbing with friends late until the night. So less of a flavour and more of a good memory tea.

This tea will forever remind me of cold winter nights spent with my boyfriend and his family: his mom would make a pot of tea every time I was over, pour in a good amount of milk and a teaspoon of sugar… so delicious. I’m sure it’s just your standard black tea, but it’s definitely the kind I drink the most, now. I love it.

Plus, it comes with a little handmade figurine!

A yummy black tea – simple, light, and great base tea for teapot combinations!

Initial Review: http://www.witheringleaves.com/red-rose-original-black-tea

While this is not the 100% most fantastic black tea in the world, it carries a lot of memories with it, and that bumps its ranking significantly. This was the tea my husband drank when I first met him and this was the tea that I always remember seeing in his flat when I would visit to keep him company during a health crisis. He would pour boiling water to half-fill a cup and then the rest would be grape juice. This would then have a teabag tucked in it to brew and it was a fabulous drink for both winter and summer. I liked it chilled or kept hot. It became a travelling tea and we would pour it into a jar and take it with us on trips. It appeared at our reception tea. Though I often make the mistake of brewing it too dark, the memories and comforts that this tea brings far make up for any deficiencies it may have in quality or taste. It is a solid tea, good for mornings and for taking on the go, and it is very convenient to find on a store shelf.

Oh, and the figurines are just fabulous. I have so many little pairs of dogs that I’m not sure what to do with them.

For the last 3 years Red Rose Original has been my good to tea. I have always enjoyed this tea. Frankly until recently I wouldn’t touch any other type of tea. I recently started trying loose teas and while I enjoy those teas I always make sure I have a box of my favorite “store” brand in the cupboard.

It was always one my grandmother drank, so the memories when sipping this tea brings me back to when I was little visiting. I like it steeped strong, usually one bag in the cup and always with a little milk and sugar.

Euhh, feeling shitty. Milk and sugar; comfort tea substitute.