Rooibos Chai

I received this as a free sample with my last Harney and Sons order. I am very picky with my chai so I did not try this tea for a long time, not sure if I would like it. I am also not a huge fan of rooibos, but it depends on the blend.

The dry tea smells of chai spices- clove, cardamom, and cinnamon. There is also a medicinal rooibos smell overtop of the chai spices.

The tea tastes like a strong rooibos tea. The chai spices are light in the background. I taste cardamom, cloves, cinnamon. There is also a slight sweetness. At the end of the sip, there is a metallic rooibos taste.

This is not a horrible tea, but not something I would chose for myself.

okay, you have no idea how long i have had this sample and have been avoiding drinking it. not only am i not really a chai fan. but i really hate the design of the little sample tea sachet package. i went to art school —snob! and in my opinion it’s super ugly.

basically i had very low expectations for this tea.

so, um, i don’t hate this tea. let’s leave it there are call it a rooibos victory.

Breaker by Low
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY8OUjxzBhs

This came as a free sample from Harney and Sons, I still don’t like it that much. All I taste is rooibos and cinnamon. I tasted it a while ago and still don’t like it. :-P

Free sample. Its an interesting mixture, the chai with the rooibos, curiously sharp. I am getting the cinnamon and cardamon that are inherant to the whole chai experience, and the rooibos lends a curious… I dont know, redness? to the whole situation.
Wouldnt buy it, but it was nice to try.

Meh. I was hoping for a more chai-like experience. The flavor here is just straight rooibos with a strong clove oil element. Oh well. Luckily I only had the one sachet.

Harney’s sent me a 1 cup teabag sample of this tea with my last order. I’m not a big fan of chai, so it’s taken me a while to get around to trying this one. And, unexpectedly, I like it. It’s not overly spiced and the rooibos isn’t overwhelming. It’s a nice lightly spiced rooibos with cinnamon, clove, and cardamom flavors. I added a couple of tablespoons of rice milk and no sweetener (can you believe that?). I sweeten almost all teas so I was surprised to find that I like this unsweetened. Perhaps that is what I need to do with all chais (add no sweetener).

ChOTD……

I purchased a sample of this on a recent Harney order. I wanted to try the rooibos chai offerings from the places I usually order before I go hunting elsewhere. I like this one! It is minus the anise in the rooibos chai from Upton, but still has the cinnamon, clove, and cardamom flavors I really love. It falls kind of mid range on the spice…you know it is there, but there really is not a punch that you get with the blends that contain pepper. Some fresh ginger would definitely make it even more wonderful. This will be on an order when my tin of the Upton rooibos chai is getting low.

Prepared by my usual pan method with a little longer brew times.

Ok…Harney and Sons must be trollin’, cause this straight rooibos. Blech. This is not a good tea day.

This tea is a lovely blend of the African red bush and Indian spice, specifically clove, cardamom and cinnamon. The Rooibos Chai is a deliciously satisfying caffeine-free alternative to wind down with in the late afternoon. Cheers!

LIVE TASTING TIME. Or umm… live noting? I DON’T EVEN KNOW.
Okay. So. This is the last tea that I have from the 4 samples that Harney gave me from my last order. The packaging for the sample packs are quite cute. This is pink aaand yeah. I was scared to try this tea at first because I wasn’t the biggest fan of rooibos, and at the time, I’ve never had chai. Now that I’ve had some rooibos teas and now that I know that I actually really like chai, I’m not as scared to try this tea! But I did read some reviews on their site and it tasted like medicine. Ummm yeah. Don’t know what to expect from this tea.
Opening the sachet aaand it smells like a spicy rooibos blend. Just what I was expecting. It kinda smells like it would have some refreshing undertones? I don’t even know. It’s like a dark burgundy in colour.
Steeping time! Oh gosh I don’t even know what temp to do this for. Okay, I’m just doing it in slightly less than boiling water. WHOA IT GOT DARK REALLY QUICKLY. It was an amber colour at first, then I bobbed the sachet up and down and now it’s like… darker.
Tasting and it smells okay? I don’t really know what to expect from it. Oh. I don’t know if I like it. Like the first two sips were decent, but now I have to finish the whole mug? This is a very bad sign. Like it was good at first! But I don’t think that rooibos and chai works well together. Well, this blend doesn’t really work. Oh whoa this is weird. Even though I know this sachet will probably steep another 2 or 3 times, I think I’ll just try to finish this mugful and then I’m done.