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deep breath So this is my first rooibos tea, ever. No, really. I’ve been a little put off by the descriptions of red tea, ranging from sour wood to pencil shavings to sweet bark, and would not have mustered up the courage to order any on my own. Fortunately, I ordered the zodiac sample set from Adagio, which includes quite a few teas mixed with rooibos. For today, I picked out the Pisces blend, which is a blend of plain rooibos, orange black tea, and “just a touch of chamomile”. Three teas I’d normally never order on their own.

I opened the tin and noticed that is smelled minty. Or like rotten oranges. Or like a mix of vapor rub and blackened rotten oranges. Not pleasant. Also an appetite killer. But I managed to work up the courage and poured the little wood bits into the steeping basket, and let it steep for 5 minutes. Now that I have the actual tea in front of me, it smells less like mint and more like orange. But yucky orange…not citrusy, and slightly spoiled. Taste is thankfully lighter and tastes like mostly like wood and faintly like orange. It’s not horrible, though. While is smells a little sour, it doesn’t taste very sour.

Should I add sweetener to this? Can I add sweetener to this? I pour in a little Splenda. Hey, this actually doesn’t taste that bad. Well, it kind of tastes like Splenda-water with an aftertaste of wood and orange. But it’s not bad. It’s actually kind of good.

But the smell. Oh, the smell. Miss Princess Purrfect aka Wendy the cat jumped up to smell this, the first time she’s ever done that for a brewed tea. And her face, when she smelled this…it wasn’t just offended, or taken back by the steam, like she normally gets when she sniffs hot food. No, her nose actually scrunched up and she looked disgusted. That is the first time I’ve ever seen her make that face. Actual disgust, not “whoa wtf is that” or “ugh how dare you offer me that”. Disgust.

Wendy darling, I empathize. I’ve almost finished the glass, but that smell…I don’t know if I can handle it. Perhaps I’ll get used to it if I steep it another time? For now, though, this goes into my “swap” pile.