Peppermint Bark

This is a very sweet tea. I have been drinking only minimally processed high-grade black, oolong, pu’erh, or green teas, and decided to do a sip down on this one (and get the can out of my tea supplies). It tastes processed; yet it is a childhood type of flavor, of candy canes and the winter holidays. It is also green rooibos, which I have grown to loathe. But in this tea, it tatses and smells of candy canes, which is simultaneously pleasant and annoying as I have given up added sugar for health reasons. Bye bye Peppermint Bark, won’t be buying again.

A friend gifted this to me when she was cleaning out her tea cupboard. Today is the last of the container and I am just realizing it’s from Republic of Tea. I only noticed the Stonewall Kitchen packaging. I’ve been drinking this one regularly through the winter in my work mug. Usually I steep it in my travel mug while getting my breakfast together and then wait until it cools some to drink. Today I followed the suggested directions and steeped for about 6 minutes in boiled water.
I’ve enjoyed this throughout winter since it looks like winter has returned today with snow/sleet/rain the tea will have one last sip. Today I’m actually focusing on the flavors. It’s a sweet creamy mint blend. Other reviewers mentioned stevia but I don’t see that in the ingredient listing. I believe the blend was changed to monk fruit to add sweetness. I would definitely purchase again. This appears to be a limited edition so I’ll have to keep my eyes open in the winter for it to come around again.

I’ve been excited for this one for a couple of days and decided to break it out this morning while going through a mountain of papers. The tea started as a light mint with a strong, sweet background note – something a little off-putting, but not undrinkable. When I let it get cold, however, it turned into cold artificial white chocolate with no mint to be found. No thanks.

sipsby bagged advent, Day 4

I got 12 bags of this as part of a Holiday Combo. It is VERY dessert-y. When it was hot it had a cooling, creamy chocolate mint flavor and I really enjoyed it. As it cooled, though, it became cloyingly sweet. Some teas are enjoyable hot or cold, This isn’t one. But when it was hot it was very tasty. I won’t have any trouble drinking 12 cups of it. I just need to be sure to drink it right away instead of letting it linger.

Thanks to tea-and-cats for this one! I would 100% order this tea. The mint is so fresh and tasty. Green rooibos is the perfect background. It just ends up being a deliciously light mint tea with some extra complexity. The cold resteep is tasty too. I love it!

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 tea smells and tastes a bit like peppermint schnapps, but without the alcohol burn.

This tastes pretty much like an ordinary peppermint tea to me. The peppermint isn’t very strong and is tasted mainly at the back of the tongue. The added stevia adds a spearmint like nuance to the edges of the peppermint, and the green rooibos adds a hay/grassy like undertone to the taste. The peppermint remains at the forefront. The chocolate and vanilla notes are experienced mainly through the nose.

Free sachet with catalog. 5 min, 200F
Pretty good. Creaminess and peppermint, but not overpowering. I might get some for the holiday season. It has stevia, but thankfully it’s not too sweet.

I received a bag of this as a freebie with the quarterly Republic of Tea catalog. Even though I am trying to primarily focus on unflavored teas and tea blends, I still wanted to give this a shot. I’m not a huge fan of the teas offered by The Republic of Tea, but hey, I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to try one more. I love peppermint, cocoa, and vanilla (I’m not sure how I feel about green rooibos at this point), so I figured this one might be a winner.

I prepared this tea using a one step Western infusion. I steeped my sample bag in 8 ounces of 212 F water for around 5 minutes. I am not in the habit of resteeping tisanes or anything in a teabag, so I did not attempt additional infusions.

After infusion, the liquor produced strong aromas of cocoa, vanilla, and peppermint. There was a slightly toasty character that I presume was provided by the green rooibos. I could also pick up on a slight sugary scent from the stevia. In the mouth, I got a muddy mix of peppermint, stevia, cocoa, vanilla creme, and toast followed by a finish that continued to emphasize peppermint, cocoa, and vanilla creme notes, though there was also an oddly sugary sweetness from the stevia that became a bit distracting for me.

So, it would appear that I am still looking for a tea from The Republic of Tea that I actually like. I think what killed this one for me was how muddled the flavors were and how sickly sweet this blend became toward the finish. I am far from a fan of stevia, and I think this blend may have been slightly better without it. I also noticed that the green rooibos base was just barely detectable. It seems that a lot of herbal blends are going to rooibos as a base component these days, and while I like rooibos, I am undecided on green rooibos and tend to feel that rooibos of any sort is better on its own. I also have a little bit of an issue with the teamakers seemingly deliberately obscuring a component of this blend to the point that it is just barely detectable. I get that the green rooibos is likely there just to provide body, but why even bother at all? Why not use something else? In the end, I’m glad I had the opportunity to try this one and will give it points for decently approximating the flavor of peppermint bark, but I would most definitely not go out of my way to have it again.