Safari Spice Red Tea

My first foray into rooibos.

Smells wonderful, but mostly of cinnamon, ginger, and berries… I don’t know what rooibos smells like and so I couldn’t tell if there was a rooibos aroma hidden under all the heavy spices. Pleasant, fills rooms.

Nice orange red color.

Tastes relatively bland though. No initial flavors hit the tongue, other than a slight vague sweetness, and as you swallow you pick up a hint of pepper (probably from the piquante peppers in it) and tart berry, but not much. A bit astringent, not unpleasantly, leaves mouth just a bit dry, which I like on cold days.

Rather disappointing overall, would not buy again.

I wanted to try a new rooibos since I am starting to really love it. The tea doesn’t have the qualities I love about rooibos, that strong honey component. I was hoping this would have a flavoring similar to their Island Mate Spice, which I truly loved. It’s more like a cinnamon tea than anything else. I shouldn’t shop when I’m thristy!

This was the first rooibos I purchased for myself when I started drinking tea. I have since moved on to primarily drinking loose tea, but I still come back to this tea.

When I first drank this tea, I was expecting something spicier considering the ingredients include cinnamon, allspice, cardamon, ginger, and cloves. The smell of the bags is mostly of cinnamon and cloves, but when brewed the spice falls into the background and the hibiscus is what I mostly smell and taste. This tea does not tend to get as bitter as most of other hibiscus-containing teas I’ve tried which is a definite plus.

I’m almost out of this tea, but I don’t plan on restocking it anytime soon. I have other rooibos blends that I enjoy more.

I like this stuff! At first I thought the flavor was kind of weak, and that it just didn’t satisfy my needs, but as I continued drinking, it gradually started to win me over. Now, it has officially won me over. The flavor is delicate, but it has that earthy rooibos taste that give it a nice little element. It also has spice and a predominant berry flavor going on here. Its a blend that somehow just makes sense, despite the fact that it seems like a bunch of random ingredients thrown together in a bag. A little sugar imo really helps bring out the flavors.

Good job celelstial seasonings! This is my first tea from you guys, so I’ll be checking you out further. I’ll also be checking out more rooibos blends, as I feel its more suitable when mixed with other ingredients, rather than by itself.

Not bad. Not great. All I taste, even with long steeping, is a vague berry flavor. Probably will not buy again. I was expecting something more like a blend of Bengal Spice and rooibos, but there’s no spice or even cinnamon flavor there. Probably will not buy again.

Update: contributed this tea to the office coffee/tea stash. Others may enjoy more than I did.

Normally I drink herbal Chai in the mornings, since I need flavor and aroma instead of caffeine to.help me wake up. When I woke up this morning and realized we were out of milk, I had to come up with something else to drink.

I decided on Safari Spice. I bought this on a whim a few weeks ago, and had not tried it yet. Next time, I think I will either steep this tea longer or use two teabags. Although I really like the flavors in Safari Spice, none of it hit me until the tea hit the back of my mouth. The initial flavor was a bland rooibos flavor, present, but only really there in spirit. I really want to like this tea, and I love the flavors I got after each swallow, so I will just chalk this up to steeper error and try again when I am not annoyed by having no milk for my chai. Check back soon to see how goes my second cup of Safari Spice!

This is a wonderful rooibos for cold winter days, or any other day, if you feel like it! Awesome spice and fruit flavour, with that peppery kick in the end which I love. Great with a bit of milk, in my opinion.

my first experience with rooibos outside of starbucks/CBTL. gotta say pretty yummy. i drank some plain – yummy – decided to add some vanilla creamer – also yummy and reminded me of a mix of a chai tea latte and vanilla rooibos tea latte from CBTL, my two favorites. perfect combination of sweet and spicy.

A very delicious and clever cup! This is a berry, ginger, cinnamon, and sweet piquanté pepper blend. This is a tea-bag and it’s very satisfying. This one is my favorite of Celestial Seasonings’ red teas.

This tea is yummmmmy. It’s different from other spiced rooibos teas, and I like this version better. It tastes a little more down to earth than say good earth, though both are good. Looking at the box, it looks like the ingredient labeled sweet piquante pepper flavor is the only major thing different. Mmmmmm, yummmmmmmy. =]

Delicious. On opening the box, very fragrant. A mellow autumn spice with a dash of fruity awesome.

It is a good tea, earthy tones that is good for morning time. Definitely nice to mix it up from my normal morning green tea. Out of all the Celestial Seasonings, this is one of my favorite.