Twenty Herbs

I’m not a huge fan of RoT, but I do think some of their fruity black teas are decent. Every year I get a few samples with a catalog, so I decided to try this.

There are twenty herbs in this…….TWENTY! I smelled the teabag, but got more aroma from the envelope it came in. From a distance it reminded me of Bubble Yum bubble gum. Closer sniffication reveals Rooibos, allspice, anise, lemon grass, cinnamon, and vanilla.

The main cup aromas were Rooibos, allspice, anise, lemongrass, and wintermint. My palate detected mainly Rooibos & allspice, while the anise hit the back of my palate. I did notice slight hibiscus in the aftertaste. Overall, a very mild cup.

I remember seeing somewhere that one of their teabags contains between 1.0-1.3 grams of tea. The standard is 2.25-3.0 grams per 6 to 8 oz cup. So you really do need two teabags to get a decent cup. That means IF I wanted to ice this tea (a general rule is to double the tea for iced tea), I’d need 3 or 4 times as much!! NOT FOR ME. :-[

To top it off this is a 20th Anniversary Tea! What a major letdown. I mean, I can’t believe they thought, ‘YES!! This is our best representation in celebration of twenty years in the tea industry! Now go celebrate!!’ This was NOT a celebration in a cup. Twenty ingredients is a mishmash in a cup-way too many, which turns out to be a mess in my cup.

I need a good FF Darjeeling RIGHT NOW! That’s a tea that is worthy of…….and IS a celebration in a cup. :))

Cupped & Reviewed: Friday, May 18, 2012.

I was thinking about this tea the other day and decided to revisit it: I remember liking it but it has some REALLY bad reviews. Why bad reviews made me decide to drink tea I do not know: probably out of curiosity. No way I liked something so bad it got a 34, right?

Well, after a fresh-brewed cup, I still do like it. It tastes kind of like a mild mix of chai (allspice & cinnamon) and sleepytime (chamomile, peppermint, lemongrass). It’s certainly not a great taste but it’s not bad. The issue, of course, is that I listed only 5 ingredients I could really taste when there are supposed to be twenty. So, 15 missing? I distinctly remember a hint of vanilla, wintergreen, lemon balm & rose in previous mugs that are just totally missing here. Even then, that’s 10… out of twenty. Looking at the ingredients list, I feel like having all of the tastes here would be just gross. Chicory, hibiscus, blackberry leaves? Belurgh.

I’m a bit conflicted on rating this in the end: the cup I drank deserves a bit higher but the cup it SHOULD be deserves lower. I will most definitely be finishing my tin if they all have a similar flavor, but I can’t actually recommend this to anyone as I have no clue what you’d wind up getting. It’s basically a grab-bag of ingredients, and not all of them go together.

I got this as a free sample at the SF International Tea Festival. Republic of Tea was there, and they were very nice. This blend was created for their 20th anniversary.

Often times with RoT I find I really need two teabags instead of one to get my tea as strong as I would normally drink it. This definitely tastes like a rooibos and herb blend. It’s well balanced but nothing really stands out to me, aside from the minty aftertaste which I don’t really care for and the slightly medicinal flavor. Sorry to be a negative nelly, but I really did not care for this at all and did not finish the cup. I like the concept of the twenty herbs but I think there is too much going on here for me.

I got a sample of this from the Republic of Tea mailing and while it was kind of them to send, I would have liked if the tea was actually good.

Its just so blegh! I did not understand what was going on inside my tea cup and I couldn’t finish it. The name is appealing but it just doesn’t work.

As I am sipping this very bland cup o’ tea, I am seeing the other tasting notes suggesting that perhaps you need two tea bags to get full flavor. Perhaps there simply isn’t enough tea in this tea. I do not taste 20 herbs. I am primarily tasting the rooibos, anise, mint and cinnamon. Perhaps I would like this in the loose leaf tea.

I am very excited because I’m pretty sure my tea order from Verdant teas will be sitting on my front porch when I get home this evening. Yay!