This is a tea of the month for May on the Classic plan. What they actually sent, though, is called Rooibos Peach (sans Bloom) and seems to have a slightly different ingredient mix. Ingredients listed are: green rooibos tea, peach pieces (peach, rice flour), flavoring, marigold petals, safflower petals.
It looks like very fine confetti in a mostly neutral color palette (muted green, hay color, brown, some flashes of red which appear to be flower petals). In the package it smells strongly of peach. There’s a little bit of a grassy/hay smell also that is the green rooibos. There’s no red in here that I can see. I am wondering whether Teavana has stopped using red rooibos in some of its fruit blends? If so, it seems to be working well. To me, green rooibos has even less flavor of its own than red, so it is an even more malleable base for fruit flavors.
The aroma after steeping is also strongly of peach, with a hint of vanilla (which must be coming from the rooibos? or maybe it’s the rice flour?) as is the taste. It’s quite nice. The rooibos isn’t noticeable really except as a vanilla note and as a sort of green aftertaste among the fruit/vanilla. To be clear, this isn’t a “peaches and cream” flavor, despite the vanilla note. It’s like peach with a vanilla outline.
It meets my criteria for good rooibos, as the rooibos isn’t loud at all. But it is sort of a one trick pony without a lot of depth or surprises. If you’re a peach lover, you’ll probably enjoy it. I have to give it a high mark for being a good rooibos, but it’s not as interesting flavor wise as some others I’ve rated higher.
