Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘red leaf tea’

When I poured the contents of the sample bag into the filter I noticed that there were a surprising amount of fannings in the as well. A certain amount would be expected in a full bag, but having them in a sample does not give a promising preview of the tea on sale.

The brewed tea doesn’t have a particularly strong smell. The initial taste is fairly bitter, which I would consider typical of a black tea, but the aftertaste has an even stronger bitterness, which I do not consider pleasant. This tea would be better if it had another flavor to distract from the bitterness, but otherwise it does not seem much different from a mass produced bagged tea.

You can purchase Red Leaf Tea Black Night directly from their website.

Africana is one of the Rooibos blends from Red Leaf Tea. It combines a rich red Rooibos leaf with bright blue malva flowers and purple cornflowers creating a very attractive loose tea that smells mildly of vanilla. The only ingredients listed for this blend are the Rooibos and the flowers that I mentioned but the description refers to “subtle touches of vanilla and orange” which I assume are added as flavoring.

I brewed a single cup of the Rooibos for 5 minutes; the tea was a nice mahogany color and had the typical sweet scent of Rooibos. The flavor as described was very subtle. A little too subtle in fact, if I hadn’t read the bag I would have thought this was a straight Rooibos. It wasn’t unpleasant; it had the nice sweet, nutty flavor that Rooibos is known for, but I couldn’t distinguish any of the vanilla or orange flavors that I was expecting.

I do enjoy plain Rooibos. There are so many flavor combinations available that it is sometimes hard to find a good Rooibos with nothing added to hide the natural taste. I started drinking Rooibos because it is naturally caffeine free and it made a nice cup of tea to relax with in the evening. For these reasons I did enjoy my cup of Rooibos Africana but I have to say that I was expecting a bit more from it.

Africana is priced a little high for a Rooibos, as are most of the loose leaf teas at Red Leaf Tea, but they have a Points and Rewards program and are currently offering free shipping which sweetens the deal considerably.

You can purchase Red Leaf Tea Rooibos Africana directly from their website.

Well, we have put out our first round of requests for tea from popular retailers around the web and world, and are truly overwhelmed with the responses!  We are currently awaiting samples for review from the following retailers:

52 Teas / Zoomdweebies

Adagio Teas

Canton Tea Co.

Cupteavity

Red Leaf Tea

Rishi Tea

Tavalon Tea

Teaforte

TeaFrog

As the samples start to come in, our reviews will be busy little beavers sampling all types and variety of teas and reporting back to our viewers on the results.  Knowing these tea companies, I expect that we will have some great tea experiences, and I can tell you that myself and our reviewers are anxiously checking the mailbox every day for these great teas!

Remember to follow us on Twitter for the latest review releases @allabouttheleaf

See you all soon with the first of our reviews!