Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘organic rooibos’

Okay, clean slate, trying the second of my Kalahari teas, Cherry Vanilla. As soon as I opened the package, the scent wafted out. The dry leaves smell almost like of those chocolate covered maraschino cherry candy bars that I can never remember the name of. Wanted to open the bag but, again, it was too dusty looking so I just dropped it into my teacup and steeped it.

It brewed up a nice, dark red color, very nice amber like you’d expect with a Rooibos. The scent is really spicy, completely overrides the initial cherry scent that I got from it. It actually smells delicious, like a caffeine free chai. I love spicy teas and am actually happy to have lost the cherry scent. First sip gave me a burst of cinnamon at the back of my tongue, a little bit powerful but that’s okay, it’s really good (did I mention that I like spiced teas?). I let it cool just slightly and the flavors from all the other spices came out almost one at a time. It’s a really good balance of spices, none are really overpowering the others now. Except for the auspicious licorice trying to sneak to the front.

I really like this blend and I tried to steep it again but it failed. Thinking the recommended steeping time for this one should be longer, closer to seven minutes.

There are ten different ingredients listed on the package. Nine great ones and one that I would love to see dropped – I don’t ‘get’ the cherry part of the blend, seems unnecessary and it’s listed as a ‘flavor’. The issue I have with unknown ingredients may seem petty but I really need to know what I’m consuming to be able to feel confident with the product. Nice blend but not good enough for a place on my shelf.

You can purchase the Cherry Vanilla directly from the Kalahari Tea website.

Kalahari describes this tea on their website as “The blend of naturally caffeine-free herb with deep flavor or roasted cacao, and fresh essence of lush, juicy ripe raspberries.”. (side note: Copy editing is available for a nominal fee – grammer/spelling mistakes on an e-commerce website are a no-no!)

I always approach samples with trepidation when I receive teabags for review. I am happy to review anything, but I WANT to like the tea. Tea companies send their teas for reviews, because they believe that they have a good product, and we receive many of these, however, I seem to have developed a bias against tea bag teas. That being said, Rooibos is naturally a small, in fact tiny leaf, so we are not dealing with fannings or dust necessarily as we would with, say, a green tea tea bag.

The smell of this tea in the bag is a pleasant mix of Chocolate and Raspberry, which are individually among my list of favorite ingredients, so we have a promising start! While the bag is brewing in the cup, I get that nose of Raspberry with subtler Chocolate undertone.

I brewed the tea with boiled water, for 5 minutes, my standard Rooibos brewing method. The color is a dark red, as are almost every single Rooibos cup I have ever had. The taste is a bit more subtle than I had expected however. I was wanting a burst of Raspberry and Chocolate, but got only a hint of each. Despite the scent, the Chocolate is the more predominant flavour, with the Raspberry just barely there. It is not overpoweringly Chocolate, which is good, but I personally would prefer a bit more tartness from the Raspberry. Since the ingredients list only Raspberry flavour, not actual Raspberry, it is to be expected that there is no actual tartness, which this blend could have benefitted from in my opinion.

Overall it is not a bad tea, but at $0.31 per bag, I am not sure that you have value for money, when you can get other loose leaf Rooibos blends for closer to $0.10 or $0.15 per cup.

You can purchase Kalahari Tea Raspberry Truffle directly from their website.