Like yesterday, today I fell asleep right after I got home from work. Unlike yesterday, I woke up before it was time to go to bed, so I was determined to have some tea. Since it is so late, I am skipping my first choice of Kukicha (caffeine, you know) and thought I’d give this a shot. Takgoti sent me some knowing I wasn’t a fan of rooibos, but I had such success with Scarlet Sable, she wanted me to try it. I’m pretty much always game for trying new things.
The dry tea smells like A-1 Steak Sauce. Seriously. Sweet and a little tangy. I also smell wood in there which I’m pretty sure is the rooibos but it doesn’t smell like sour wood so thumbs up to that. After pouring the now brewed tea into my cup, the main smell I’m getting is of wood. Again, not sour wood, so that’s good. I can get hints of other stuff going on smell-wise, but honestly, I just keep focusing unintentionally on the rooibos and missing out on the other stuff. I think I’m keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t stab me in the back.
And now to the tasting. To me, this tastes exactly like it smells (well, not the steak sauce smell). Rooibos rooibos rooibos with a little something tingly going on on the tip of my tongue. That being said, it’s not a sour wood rooibos taste. It’s woody and the spices add a nice depth to it, keeping it from being flat tasting. And now that I’ve determined that the rooibos in this is not evil, I seem to be getting other tastes from the tea. Sweet and a little spicy (just to the level of a warm tingle, not an actual burn).
I’ll admit, I’m not fully sure how to rate this. The dominant taste is rooibos but not a bad rooibos so I can’t hate it, even if I wanted to. I actually really like this. But it’s taking me a bit to get over the mental block of rooibos = evil. This is certainly something drinkable and I like having non-caffeine options so it totally gets points for that. I’m giving it a tentative score right now but depending on how future meetings so, I could see this possibly going up.
So all in all, not the total win Scarlet Sable was but by far the most successful rooibos adventure I’ve had!
