The Republic of Tea — Sip and Be Merry, Holiday Gift Tea, 50 Tea Bags, Naturally Caffeinated

Got a canister of these bags last year for a Christmas gift. Decided to buy two more! Wonderful flavor and a good value!

This is a great seasonal tea that I continue to purchase every fall/winter season. It has a vanilla flavor with berry and it is one of my favorites!!

This tea is perfect for staying warm and cozy on a cold day

Love this tea, wish it was available all year long.

The taste is great and the aroma of the brewed tea is excellent. A very satisfying cup of tea!

We absolutely love this tea and will most definitely be purchasing more!

I'm a daily user of teas from The Republic of Tea. I usually stick with their various green teas, but occasionally feel the need for a black tea for its more robust flavor and higher caffeine level.While I do like spiced teas, I don't like them when their natural flavorings bring out too much sweetness in the tea since I prefer my tea (and coffee) unsweetened. This one has a very nice flavor, but is *almost* at the point where it's too sweet for me (although not as sweet as some of their other flavored teas). I think the ingredient culprit for me is the natural caramel flavoring--and possibly the vanilla-- because it adds a great deal of sweetness to the tea in addition to the actual flavor. My preference is one that is simply a spiced tea, but I've had trouble finding a spiced black tea minus the caramel and vanilla. The Republic of Tea has a green rooibos tea called Get Burning that I love as a spicy--but not too sweet--blend. It has spices like ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, and cloves as well as chili peppers to give it some more oomph. I don't think it does much to increase metabolism (like it claims), but I think it's delicious and wish they made a black tea blend with similar ingredients.For those people who like a bit of sweetness to their spiced black tea, this Sip and Be Merry Holiday tea is probably a very good choice.The small, round tea bags come with no attached strings or tags. I'm fine with that because everything is biodegradable and can be tossed in the compost bins.Ingredients: Black tea, sweet blackberry leaves, natural caramel and vanilla flavors and cardamom seeds

Update to the review I left a year ago: Sip and be merry used to be my favorite tea. Ordered it again last month and was extremely disappointed. The new batch smells only of cardamom, no vanilla or caramel detected, and when brewed, it's pretty weak with the flavor of black tea plus subtle hints of cardamom. No bold complex flavor any more. Did they change the formula or just a bad batch???The old review:Sip and be Merry is my new favorite tea from the Republic of Tea. Very fragrant and very Christmasy. At first I thought it was a bit expensive at $15.99 per jar, but then I noticed that each contained 50 tea bags (unlike regular 36), so the price of each individual tea bag is pretty much the same.