Smells of wood, something wet but fresh cut, not oak, Alder maybe. It has been too long since my forestry lab class for me to identify trees from the smell after they have been cut. In addition you have some brown sugar aroma mixed in and a whisper of nutmeg? Something in the smell also reminds me of butter, but that isn’t quite right. In addition with a deep inhale the smell has a slight stinging sensation deep in my nose… Odd… I haven’t noticed that before.
This was prepared with 14 ounces of water and two teaspoons of rooibos, finishing my sample from Adagio. I steeped this one longer than I had previously. Since I was loading the dishwasher and happened to actually let it go the extra minute before my timer went off. Past experience has been that rooibos itself is very forgiving to extra steeping time and this seems to hold true.
First taste when it hits your tongue is also very woody, but in a pleasant way. Aftertaste is much the same with a touch of olive oil? Something that makes my brain think of butter or olive oil, but my taste buds are still shouting wood! Red rooibos mixes very well with flavors and straight “red bush” tea is something I wanted to try so I would know what was the rooibos and what was the extra added flavors. All in all I prefer the Adagio Orange Rooibos for taste, but the smell of straight rooibos tea is quite good and a delight to my nose. As it cools the flavor of wood becomes a little milder and I might be getting a dash of pepper from the back of my tongue, a very mild black pepper like nibble back there…
In case you haven’t noticed I do like my rooibos, now that I’m out I’ll have to find some more from somewhere. Luckily my new tea shipment should come tomorrow assuming the weather north of me hasn’t delayed it yet again…
