I’ve had this tea around for awhile…long enough that mine has the old Panda Berry label! Part of my reason for joining this site was to encourage myself to start rooting around in the depths of my tea cupboard a bit more, and this has definitely been a lurker. I can’t recall what it tasted like anymore, and on opening the canister I discovered that uh…I’ve probably had this all of 2 or 3 times. Looking at the tin vs the Republic’s website ( I added their ingredients to the Steepster listing), the ingredients have remained the same after the name change, with the exception of “natural cream flavoring” having been replaced with (or renamed as) “natural vanilla flavoring”.
The scent of the dry tea is a strong, sweet cherry/berry scent. I like my fruity tea strong, so I brewed it for an extra minute, as it was still looking pretty pale at 4 minutes. Once brewed, the berry scent is quite faint, and unsweetened, it tastes kind of like slightly berry flavored hot water. In an attempt to bring some of the flavors out, I added a little honey. It didn’t make much of a difference – now it tastes like sweet slightly berry flavored hot water! I don’t taste black tea in this at all. I don’t have any lemon around, but there’s a chance it might improve this tea a bit.
On the container, it said to let it cool to room temperature (although I suspect that’s just to avoid scorching your kids), but I decided to give that a try, just to give this a fair shake. It didn’t do much sadly – now it’s just cool, sweet, slightly berry flavored water…blargh.
This tea isn’t undrinkable (I finished my cup), but it’s pretty ho-hum. I’m going to go brew up a cup of something else!
Now that I’ve rated this poorly, if anyone out there still wants what I have left (probably around 45 bags) for their kids, or just to try, please PM me – I feel kind of guilty chucking it (although I think I’ll keep the canister to air out and put other tea in). I suppose for now, it’ll just go back to lurking until I need the space!
