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“Sipdown! Finished this one off last night. I don’t know whether it’s just me, but the last few cups of this took on a slightly smoky taste. I have no idea why — I don’t have any smoky teas stored...” Read full tasting note
“Thanks lovely cteresa for sending it over me. but I won’t rate it. I love vanilla (good ones only ! this is an aroma which cannot bear mediocrity to my opinion) I love ,but really love, raspberry,...” Read full tasting note
“another delicious tea from Scheherazade I steeped this one for 6+mins and i’m pretty sure that longer would make it even better. Falling asleep at the moment but this one was a tasty raspberry...” Read full tasting note
“I’m having BRAVE TEA!!! courtesy of Cteresa who sent me an envelope of goodies. Well, actually it’s a rooibos rather than a tea-tea, and that’s why it’s brave. Me and rooibos, we have a troubled...” Read full tasting note
Rooibos, Raspberry, Vanilla Pieces and rose Petals
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Sipdown! Finished this one off last night. I don’t know whether it’s just me, but the last few cups of this took on a slightly smoky taste. I have no idea why — I don’t have any smoky teas stored near this, and I know it for a fact because I don’t think I have any smoky tea in my stash at all right now. Maybe one, in Smaug, but it’s not even in the same box. It’s been open a while and is a little old, so it might be that. Or it might just be me.
Whatever, though. This was a pleasant raspberry rooibos. With milk and a little sugar, it’s just like a raspberry milkshake. This is one I think I’ll be missing a little.
Thanks lovely cteresa for sending it over me.
but I won’t rate it.
I love vanilla (good ones only ! this is an aroma which cannot bear mediocrity to my opinion)
I love ,but really love, raspberry, my favourite fruit.
So what’s the problem ???…it’s me !!!
I trust cteresa (her tastes & opinions are so reliable), this is surely a very good rooibos. I trust Angrboda as well of course, I love so much your reviews and your notes !
The point is I think I really do not like Rooibos …until now…but will persevere : L’appétit vient en mangeant…as we say in French ;)
Hmm now I am not so sure if red rooibos is for you. We all got our own tastes! But I can not think of any rooibos more likely to convert you than this.
But maybe green rooibos, have you ever had any? It does not have that particularl rooibos body but it has more body than tisanes though and be lovely on its own or as basis for other teas. It is really quite different!
I’ll give this rooibos another try – it has everything I love especially raspberry so I’ll give another try (I always give several try to teas and chances to people too !) sometimes we need to learn by trying again & again, it’s probably what I have to do with rooibos.
It is true about people surely! Teas should get their chances as well!
An idea, do not brew rooibos TOO cold – at least 90, 95 maybe even, and at least 5 minutes (some rooibos not much longer but this one is not a problem how long it stays.) try 95 and some 6 minutes or so.
thanks for the tip about temperature it may be why I found the rooibos not bodied enough to me
Ysaurelle, I too am having difficulties with red Rooibos, finding it bears some kind of medicine aftertaste most of the time…But I’ve come to appriciate a few, such as David’sTea Ô Canada, and some Tealish very fruity blends. Il’l be happy to share some with you soon. You are right about wanting to try more than once, there’s lots of teas I wouldn’t be having otherwise :-) I think cteresa is right about the green rooibos, maybe you should give it a try, it’s very different from the red…
Definetely brew it a bit hotter and a bit longer. I used to be very heartless with rooibos – free boiling water and many many minutes and that is not perfect either particularly for some blends, but 90-95 and 5-8 minutes should be good.
Green rooibos is worth trying! I think Kusmi makes plain unflavored green rooibos but not sure it´s worth buying from them, it´s relatively easy to find unflavoured green rooibos. I have been flirting like mad with theodor´s home page and they have also unflavoured and one or two green rooibos mixes (thé des swenkas I think). I have bought at supermarkets (Intermarché) flavored green rooibos teabags from a south african brand called carmien which were OK. And I got a nice green honeybush/green rooibos mix from this place http://teahouse.de/ which is called wiener apfelstrudel but actually tastes of hazelnuts. It exists! Germans seem to particularly like green rooibos blends, most of what i find is German.
This was the very one that turned rooibos for me. I had said for the longest time that I didn’t like it, but this belnd showed me that I apparently do like it when flavoured. Perhaps red rooibos just can’t be salvaged for you. Oh well, we win some, we lose some.
I can’t say about the green rooibos, though. I’ve only ever tried that once long ago, so I can’t remember what it’s like, but I’ll join the people encouraging the experiment anyway. You never know. :)
I found one I liked : mango lassi from Butiki teas :)
And I got to send you a couple green rooibos samples for you to try – just in case! I will send you a mail.
I’m having BRAVE TEA!!! courtesy of Cteresa who sent me an envelope of goodies. Well, actually it’s a rooibos rather than a tea-tea, and that’s why it’s brave. Me and rooibos, we have a troubled past, to be honest. On the other hand raspberry and vanilla? How can that not be lovely?
So, as this was the only sample in the envelope that had me a bit doubtful and as I was in an adventurous brave frame of mind, I decided to start with this one right off the bat, because otherwise the fear of rooibos would make me postpone it for ages and ages and ages. I must admit, I have been sent a few samples in my time that I’m still too afraid to try.
So we’re having this one now. The boyfriend was actually very excited that I was making a rooibos, as he really likes them. (And still rarely asks for one when I ask him about preference, for some reason. I think he deliberately goes for things that we can both have, and that’s not always the purpose of my question) Anyway, he was excited and wanted a cup too. Luckily for him, I had already decided that it would be a sharing one.
Now comes the challenge of keeping a neutral mind and not let my misgivings colour the experience too much.
The aroma is incredibly sweet and fruity and extremely raspberry-y! I’m surprised at how very fruity and juicy this actually smells. I’m not even getting a whole lot of rooibos-y aroma from it unless I put my nose so close to the surface that I’m dipping the tip in it. It’s just all raspberry and only just a hint of that rooibos-y woodenness that is the larger part of my rooibos problem. As for the vanilla, at first I thought I couldn’t find it, but the more I sniff at this, the more I realise that it is there, and it’s every bit as strong as the raspberry, but because the raspberry is a naturally sharper aroma, the vanilla ends up rather camuflaged. Once you know it’s there, there’s no trouble in picking it out.
This smells like a raspberry flavoured sweet. Or an ice cream, one of the more luxurious brands.
Gosh.
Oh my gosh.
Steepsterites, gosh!
Am I really drinking rooibos, or am I in fact biting a berry?
All this time, I’ve completely written off rooibos because I don’t like it plain, but now it turns out that flavoured it might be totally acceptable. Probably just has to be a fairly strong flavouring. Rooibos plain, I find I might as well be chewing a pencil dipped in hot water.
Anyway, yes, this is surprisingly good!
It’s very intensely flavoured and taking the first sip of this was one hundred percent raspberry. Not raspberry flavour, mind you. No, it was actually like eating a real raspberry! I can’t recall every having come across anything fruit flavoured, not just teas and the like, anything fruit flavoured and have it taste so unbelievably close to the real thing.
Again, I’m getting very little actual rooibos flavour here. There is a hint of something sort of wooden in the background, but it’s very faint and under control and therefore not unpleasant at all. I suspect it’s probably the vanilla aspect here that might be doing that. I don’t really get a lot of vanilla in the flavour, but I could definitely imagine a good thick vanilla flavour as being one that could counter the wooden flavour of plain rooibos.
Wow, this is amazing. I went into this one expecting it to be tolerable at best and probably somewhere in the range of the yellow face on the scale, and now look where we ended up instead! I suspect that Cteresa actually knows me better than I think she does. Perhaps even better than I know myself!
LOL, loved reading your opinion and so glad you liked it – it was a recent discovery of mine, i think i went through almost all of Yumchaa´s blends before hitting this one and I just adore it.
Yumchaa is pretty great at rooibos blends.
And it is not raspberry flavor only, there are plenty of dried raspberries in there – though maybe the sample did not get any!
and yeah, I think vanilla and rooibos goes along very very well, it´s a classic always. Though I also think good rooibos is much more pleasant than a lot of the well, budget rooibos used in a lot of mixes (sometimes not budget mixes).
I’ve been thinking of placing a Yumchaa order for a couple I really enjoyed, and considered this one but am also scared of most rooibos blends at this point. Maybe I’ll have to give it a shot, because raspberry-vanilla sounds so lovely!
…the redemption of the rooibos – happy to hear it :)
and i, rooibos-lover that i am, now have to seriously check out Yumchaa teas, because raspberry-vanilla really does sound lovely.
Sometimes, no strike that, almost always simple is best. It has taken me ages to try this, it sounded so simple, raspberry and vanilla (with rose petals) rooibos. Nothing really new or different. But oh my, is this awesome. Awesome indeed. Smells like raspberry, very intense, but just kicked subtly into more awesomeness by the vanilla and rose. I was in love at the first sniff, the taste is as awesome as the smell and this is probably going to be a full fledged long term love affair. Love this.
Totally agree with “almost always simple is best”; it certainly requires high quality ingredients. But your comment following Angrboda’s review that there are plenty of dried rapsberries in there sold it to me…
It is lovely indeed – but I think Yumchaa is very very good at blending rooibos mixes.
Wow. Both when taking the pack off the cupboard and right after brewing, the raspberry smell is incredible.
When drinking it, I first noticed the delightful raspberry taste, nothing subtle about it; it was like I had been thrown in a raspberry bucket – if you’re not a big fan of this fruit, this blend might come as too strong for you.
What I really liked is that when the brew was getting more luke-warm than real hot, the vanilla flavor started to come alive, despite its being muted to my taste buds in the hot brew.
While drinking my second tea-pot (another evening), I realized the vanilla and rose flavors were there, right from the start, though almost muted by the overwhelming raspberry.
I then decided to try it iced, to see how it was coming. Amazingly the vanilla taste is now prominent, up to par with the raspberry, making the brew seems smooth and creamy.
I am not sure yet how I’ll feel about this flavored rooibos in a few weeks, as it’s possible I might have enough of it and prefer some more subtle blend. Or maybe not. Let’s see ;)
I notice that about the vanilla in a lot of teas – for example one of my current infatuations is peach and vanilla, as the tea cools the vanilla starts to rule! I suspect it is a characteristic of (real) Bourbon vanilla. It is interesting how the flavours became dominant at different temperatures!
i needed some comfort. something warm and restful and sweet. and i kinda struck gold.
i have sooooo many herbal teas in my samples box it’s kinda bonkers. i mean, mostly just cuz they are so easy to drink you can drink them anytime! so why don’t i?
but i promise to try harder.
raspberry rooibos and ‘Endeavor’ on masterpiece mystery theater. too bad i fell asleep before i could find out who-dun-it!
thank you Scheherazade for this cozy wozy cup when i needed it.
Another tea gifted by @EmilyGee. I love it! The dry tea smells lovely and is only a little less aromatic once brewed. I’m very fussy about fruit teas. And I’m a huge fan of raspberry stuff. This one isnt bad. Not overly artificial tasting, pretty decent actually. Man, maybe I’m just not very good at reviewing tea or they’re all starting to blend together for me lol. Overall, I think the vanilla helps to make the raspberry not so tart or even maybe tones down any artificial raspberry taste because this is pretty good!
Flavors: Raspberry, Vanilla
This is a very enjoyable raspberry/vanilla tea. The rooibos is light and does not overwhelm the tea. The raspberry is very juicy and nice. From the Herbal TTB I have a ton of rooibos teas to try, which can be very variable. This goes the in the “win” column!
Finally getting to one of my samples from EmilyGee. Thanks for sending this to me.
Sad to say I tried to make this at work and I a. dumped a bunch of the leaves on my desk and b. got distracted with customers and might have oversteeped….
Smells yummy in the bag… HOWEVER I took one sip of this and immediately regretted it. Maybe I don’t like raspberry flavouring (I hope not… just bought 50g of a raspberry vanilla from a local tea shop), but all I could taste was robitussin cough syrup. YUCK. I attempted a second sip and just couldn’t do it. Down the drain this goes!
I appreciate the sample Emily! However I just cant do this tea :(
Flavors: Medicinal
Oh no </3 I’m sorry you didn’t like it! :(
Its no worries! I’ve heard of people thinking rooibos tasted medicinal. Its never happened to me before until this one! But its no big deal! I’ve gotta have a few bad teas or else I would buy all the teas everywhere haha!
