Madagascar Vanilla Red

C.S. Lewis lovers, doesn’t the lion on the box remind you of Aslan? (You can never get a book long enough or a cup of tea large enough to suit me.)

My cups of tea at Shabby House are numbered. Hallelujah and Jehovah Jireh (with a little bit of the hora thrown in), we have a house waiting for us. Modest and humble, but OURS. Keys should be in our hand tomorrow and moving process should take about a week. I’m finally letting myself believe it and PACKED the loose tea filter.

So I’m down to whatever I can drink out of a bag, and this crumpled box looked like it needed me.

Vanilla Comoro fans, this is really, really close on the super vanilla pastry-like sweetness; just a rooibos base instead of the black. Great for tea and cookie break on a raw, windy afternoon.

After seeing the tasting note of gmathis the other day I decided to go ahead and get this today at the grocery store. I learned recently that rooibos is supposed to be good for heartburn so I am really wanting to learn to like this stuff!

I steeped this for 5 minutes with boiling water and used two teabags because I was planning to use my BIG mug with the owls on it (neither here nor there, but it is cute). I was very impressed with this stuff, it’s certainly one of the better red rooibos teas I’ve had. It isn’t sickening or medicinal, for one thing. :)) The vanilla is definitely there and it’s nice, not too sweet or anything. A splash of soymilk made this really good.

Bonus points for cheapness as well… this will be a really nice thing to have around.

This has been on my shopping list for a long time. Rooibos + vanilla is always a reliable combination for me. I also saw that it has french vanilla flavoring in it.. Mmmm, a cup for me please! I haven’t tried this tea for so long because I never found it at any grocery store near my house. The other day, I finally saw this tea and grabbed a box. I find that tea from Celestial Seasonings gives up the flavor quickly… I let this rooibos steep for a while to see what kind of cup it would make.
It reminds me a bit of the Good Hope Vanilla Red tea from Republic of Tea. The rooibos is the most prominent flavor. It’s not the smoothest rooibos in the world. It’s woody, but also has me expecting splinters in the sip. Sorry, that’s not the best image. I don’t taste a whole lot of vanilla.. it’s still sweet, though. Given the choice between this tea and Good Hope Vanilla Red, I think I would pick Good Hope Vanilla. That tea seems to be more smooth, sweet and creamy. I still have quite a few bags left in the box. They’ll be useful for when I’m looking for a relatively simple tea at night.

Like Bengal Spice, the box for Madagascar Vanilla Red has a big cat on the front. This one is a more fanciful picture of a lion taking a break from pursuing zebras to enjoy a cup of tea.

Madagascar Vanilla Red contains Rooibos, which is what prompted me to buy it. Though I didn’t want to admit it, I was curious about the stuff. Being out here in the sticks, I tend to make fun of the latest thing from the coasts. It‘s kind of a pre-emptive move since those who live there get to try anything trendy (which is usually available there first). Then, when they prattle on about it and people from the middle of the country don’t know what they’re talking about, they sneer at the ignorant hillbillies and our backward ways. Pardon us if we get a little defensive.

So I’d been rolling my eyes for a month while my Facebook friends in CA posted about all the rooibos blends they were sampling. “Well hoity toity,” I muttered. “How do you pronounce it anyway?”

It’s Roy boss, but by the time I had the box with it’s pronunciation guide, I was already mangling it my own way. This is a common form of entertainment in my family. I called it Rue ee booze. Then I was told that my nephew in St Louis was pronouncing it like the half giant’s name in Harry Potter, Rubeus. I have since adopted this practice. Yeah, I know how it’s SUPPOSED to be pronounced, but being an Arkansan and doomed to be perceived as a backward hillbilly no matter how edjumacated I become, I might as well have a little fun mispronouncing it.

Rooibos is to me a sort of African answer to sassafras. I’m not saying it tastes like sassafras, but it has a kind of unique sweetness that parallels it in my mind. It is fun to try different blends to see what goes with it, now that it’s available here.

I was kind of ho hum about this tea at first because it has no caffeine and seemed a bit boring, but it has grown on me. I like the vanilla and enjoy this hot or cold, plain or as a dessert tea with sweetener and coconut milk. Madagascar Vanilla Red has become like a dear friend. I‘ve developed fond regards for this tea, very much like those I have for the character I like to pretend this tea’s ingredient is named for. It may not be the most exciting thing in my cupboard, but it has a welcome place there. Sometimes the warm and familiar are just what I need.

Very good quality Roobibos & the vanilla isnt too strong, Lovee this tea. A bit of cream makes it even better =]

Way better than Tazo’s vanilla rooibos.

Also, this tea marks the 6th straight rooibos blend I’ve bought. Now I know how heroin addicts feel…

I bought this because I have been on a listening glom of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency audiobooks and had no idea what bush tea was or what it tasted like, and I wanted to know. I wonder how many of us from continents other than Africa did essentially the same thing?

Anyway — this afternoon I am trying it straight up, my usual 2 bags to a pretty large cup (8-9 oz.) of microwaved water. I didn’t time it carefully.

I have tried it before with milk and with the famous fat-free half-and-half, and it’s growing on me.

All by itself, it smells earthy with a strong current of vanilla. More nutty than woody, maybe a bit like roasted pecans.

To me, it tastes almost NOTHING like it smells. All I can taste is the nuttiness. No flavor of vanilla at all. A much simpler taste than scent. Vaguely disappointing if I think of it that way, so I am now sipping it in a zen-like “be here now” non-judging manner.

It’s warm and comforting and I want to go back and sit with Mma Ramotswe while we sip.

Maybe more later, re-visited with something added to the tea.

Minor update: as the tea cools a bit, I’m getting caramel – maybe an echo of the vanilla.

I like it. The vanilla comes across a bit strong and drowns out the rooibos a little, but the key word there is ‘little’, with some other vanilla rooibos tisanes I might as well have drunk vanilla extract and had done with it. It definitely one for when I fancy something sweet, and I’d definitely reach for it over the spendy teapigs rooibos blends.

I like this for a bedtime tea every once in a while, when I want something stronger than herbal but don’t want to keep myself awake with a black tea. I’d agree that the vanilla is strong – maybe too strong, even – but you can still taste the rooibos under it, and the overall taste/smell is wonderful. It’s also great as a dessert tea with a bit of milk and sugar.

I love the vanilla flavor. I drink this to eat less cake.

Smooth, well-balanced, but no “wow” factor.

This is my first rooibos tea. I’m not sure why it took me so long, but I’m glad I tried it.

Besides the vanilla, I’d compare the flavor to what you’d get if you took the intersection over the flavor of all black teas, and then also took out any hint of harshness or astringency. Not really any of the wonderfully diverse terroir-based flavors you’d get in most black teas, but it’s just so damn smooth and friendly. It’s funny how close this tea gets to the flavor of a black tea with milk, without any milk added.

It’s a little heavy on the vanilla for me, but overall it’s enjoyable. If black tea is a ripe cheddar, then this is American cheese. I’ll stick with black for my everyday tea, but this is worth having when you want a tea that you can drink as much of as you like, or just as a change of pace.

Very good! Two cups in a row tonight… refreshing, relaxing and tastes nice. Will buy again and would like to try their other rooibos blends. Publix is bogo free thru 12/15 so I’ll have to go back and take advantage of a great sale :)

Honestly, this is a really tasty, sweet tea. The vanilla reminds me of a delicious sugar cookie.

However, I have learned that roobios – any roobios be it flavored, blended, or plain, with or without additives (sugar, milk, honey, citrus) – causes me the worst heartburn I’ve ever experienced and that, unfortunately, leads to my giving it a poor rating.

I’ve never met a rooibos that I didn’t like. Rooibos paired with vanilla in this one is just delicious, it has a sweet creamy taste that I can totally see replacing desserts :D

My favorite fake-me-out-when-I-need-some-caffeinated-tea-but-want-to-sleep-tonight tea. Also good for mornings when I have time to throw a bag in my cup & run to a meeting. Like this morning. So lovely.

I was thinking one day, while on my break at work, “Man! I need some new tea!” Even though my tea cabinet is full of several kinds, and variations of teas.So, I went to Price Cutter, thinking, they’re not gonna have what I want. I was browsing, and a red box caught my eye. I picked it up and looked it over. I put it up to my nose and the aroma had me hooked. I got back to work and opened the box,my mouth starting watering the instant I smelled it again. A coworker asked for a couple of bags, and we would compare tea notes the next day. I eagerly went home, and started the tea pot. The wait was killing me! Finally it had steeped to perfection! I added a couple of teaspoons of sugar, and I was hooked! I now have like 3 boxes of this stuff! I love it as much as I love my chais! Sooooo gooooood!!!

My local tea house sells a tea the tastes remarkably like Madagascar Vanilla Red and calls it Red Velvet… which I think is pretty spot on, though it lacks creaminess

This is a nice, sweet smelling tea. I will drink it at night when my normal caffeine laden breakfast blends just won’t do. I like it with sweetener and a milk (type) product (depends on whether I have lactose free milk in the fridge, or if I have to go with soy).

I have been serving it to my kids since they were about 7 and 9, and they love it as much as they love hot chocolate (I fill the mug 1/2 with tea, and 1/2 with milk and then add a sweetener).

It is not TOO cloying—I don’t like most fruity or other flavored teas—this allows you to sweeten it up or down based on your own personal taste.

This tea was pretty good. The smell was a bit of a turn-off though…it smelled intensely sweet and rich, so before even trying it I was apprehensive. Thankfully it didn’t taste as ridiculously strong. The first thing I tasted was the vanilla, followed by the nice flavor of rooibos (this is my first rooibos tea). I look forward to having more rooibos teas in the future :) they’re pretty nice.