liralen | Good Hope Vanilla (Reply)

Bought: Nine months ago at a Whole Foods, an impulse buy as I'd tried some rooiboos before and hadn't liked it with ginger, flowers, or fruit flavors. I'd kind of liked it plain, but it was missing something. This is from The Republic of Tea, and it's in the unbleached tea bags. Yes. I use tea bags. :-)

Brewed: Full boil (203) 10 ounces of water for 1 bag. 4 minutes.
Leaf is much like liquor scent: vanilla, hibiscus, and tobacco
Leaf color: brownish red confetti, more bark than leaf..

Rooiboos has always tasted surprisingly like tea tinged with what tobacco smells like and an underlying hibiscus floral scent. Sweet like hibiscus, but it doesn't actually taste tangy or acidy. It's mellow, smooth, and the vanilla fills it out some more with bourbon and cream. There something in there that reminds me of the same low-grade wood tannins in tea that have to be there to support the taste. The body and texture is a lot like a good black, but I'll admit I would not mistake this for tea.

There's a lot about the health benefits of rooiboos, but like with white teas and green teas, if it didn't taste good I wouldn't go back. In this case, I've gone through a 36 bag tin in less than nine months. That's amazingly fast for me.

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