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I have strong feelings about this tisane. I didn’t really think I was difficult to please with rooibos until I had this tisane. I’ve liked rooibos for years. My entry point was Celestial Seasonings Madagascar Vanilla. Then in 2008 I lived in South Africa near Cape Town for half a year and got to try lots of local blends from the farmers in the Cedarberg Mountains, the cream of the crop. South Africans drink a lot of rooibos. It is available nearly everywhere you go to dine and is a frequent refreshment at events. I had already liked it before my trip there, but I came to really love it during that time.

Let’s get on with this Red Rocks review though. Dry, the needles smell like vanilla and pipe tobacco. While brewing, the aroma is rather intoxicating. Oh, if only this tisane tasted like it smelled, It’d be heaven. The scent is like warm sugar cookies or a packet of fruit and cream flavored instant oatmeal after you’ve added the water.

The flavor, unfortunately has some major offenses. First of all… I don’t taste rooibos. I don’t taste vanilla. I don’t taste almonds. Funny, since those are the only three ingredients! What I taste is something akin to cherry pipe tobacco. It’s creamy, but tart, oh so tart. Adding sugar only makes it more tart, and it leaves a tartness in my mouth for several minutes after I drink it. To me this is the worst aspect of this tisane. I end up salivating like I just sucked on a lemon, or like there’s a penny in my mouth.

I have never had tisane with almond pieces in it before, and from this experience alone I don’t think I’ll ever trust another tisane with nuts in it at all. I felt skeptical at first and imagined they were filler because as hard and thick as nuts are, I didn’t imagine they’d really saturate and release much flavor in just a few minutes steeping in hot water. I think I was wrong though, because I couldn’t figure out where this tisane gets its tartness from until I ate one of the almonds. Yuck! I should mention that this tin of tisane (which I purchased at Whole Foods) doesn’t have an expiration date or manufacturing date on it, which should have been a red flag for me. Nuts expire. I didn’t even know that until about a year ago when someone mentioned it in a nutrition class. Then I went to taste months-old nuts I had in my pantry and realized… wow, they do taste off after a while. The almonds in this tisane taste really off to me, as if they may just be old and acrid. Or maybe they’re just not great almonds to begin with. I can only wonder.

I should have returned this to the store when I first drank it, since they are pretty lax about returns if you don’t like something, but I live far away from there and don’t have reliable transportation, so I decided to just give it some more chances. I have since removed all the little almond pieces from the tisane and find that it is a bit better than before, though it doesn’t taste much different and it still does not have the signature woody qualities I am used to in rooibos. I find that adding sugar and cream together makes this tisane more enjoyable for me, but it still has that lingering tartness that just kills me. I’m not a purist in the sense that I won’t add sugar or cream to a tea or tisane, but I am a purist in the sense that if I can’t drink a tea or tisane WITHOUT cream or sugar, then to hell with it. Rooibos has always been a gentle and refreshing drink to me with nothing offensive about it. The fact that this blend has an offensive quality to it is a major bummer, and as rooibos goes, this wasn’t exactly a reasonably priced one either.

I tried it with varying amounts of tea and varying times and could never really find a balance, so…. meh.

I’m on a quest now to find a rooibos that is perfect for me, and will be following some leads from other reviews and a forum post I made. Wish me luck!