I like rooibos, flavoring that mix flowers with fruits and had purchased this tea on the pure basis of the description without smelling it in the shop.
When opening the bag, I was startled by how nice this blend was looking with the blua mallow petals being softly curled and not crushed into small pieces. I believe this is probably the nicest looking rooibos blend I’ve seen yet (very shallow comment but nonetheless true – I always look at it with pleasure).
I brewed already a few teapots of this and was totally puzzled by the taste, which was very different from what I expected, did not really correspond to the description, as I could not find any hints of vanilla, blackberry and could not reconcile the fruit taste with exotic fruit (I was thinking at the flavors of exotic fruit juices).
Then two nights ago, I got hit by an awakening: lychee, the sweet and sour taste that puzzled me was that of lychee. It’s supposed to taste like guava, but guava gives me a completely different gustatory experience, in the sense that the fruit has a grainy texture which almost dries the tongue. I do not reconcile that experience at all when drinking this blend.
Now that I have identified the main flavor, I’ll try to look out for the secondary ones…
My rating takes into account the fact that I really prefer sweet and tart fruits and flavors to anything a bit sour, like lychee, which I only eat in very small quantities at one time. Had I realized that this would be the dominant flavor of this rooibos, I probably would not have buy it.
205 °F / 96 °C
5 min, 0 sec
Lychee indeed! sipping this right now, going to write a taste note.