Rouge Sahara

Well this was an unexpected dud, but one which made me realize something about the peculiarities of my personal likes and dislikes.

I love rooibos, but I am very picky about rooibos – the base has to have certain characteristics. Some rooibos bases I dislike, seem musty or woody or even silty to me. But when rooibos is good, I do love it and it´s an extremely comforting evening drink. It´s far more difficult to me to find good rooibos than good tea, I got 3 (plus one south african supermarket brand which is an occasional random find) brands whose rooibos blends seem great to me – apart from those ocasional finds which seem good, but many others I do not even come close to finishing.

Mariage Fréres is one of my reliable rooibos brands, and wanting to try something new, the saleslady recommend this as her personal favorite. It smelled different, so minty, I decided to give it a (small) try. It´s rooibos with a lot of dried mint and rose petals, not sure if it has extra flavourings.

And the problem is with the flavouring – this made me realize I dislike dried mint leaves steeped in boiling water. I love fresh mint, I like mint in green teas (which do not steep in water so hot), but plain mint tisanes, noooo. Mint and boiling water, it is like the mint leaves this oily hint of bitterness which I dislike. And that was the problem here – I used boiling water and the mint had that oily boiled-mint thing and that was indeed a problem for me. Now I do not know what to do with is, I like rooibos very hot and very long, but if I do that the mint is going to annoy me. Will try again with water a bit colder, to see if there is rescue to this.

TLDR: Mint and boiling water: no-no. Mint only for lower temperature teas.

PS – also not a good rooibos for my late at night rooibos since I leave the spent leaves on the gravity infuser overnight. I never had a problem with smells (apart from the time I tried something with another variety of mint), but there is a definite minty overtone in the strainer now. This really is not a rooibos for me.

I had bought this mint rooibos, just to try, thinking it should be nicely refreshing with the mint flavor, also because my husband told me he liked the smell in the shop. But I must confess I was not expecting much of it, as I was afraid of the mint.
Yesterday I opened the bag and smelled it: very refreshing mint, natural smelling for instance.
I brewed it and started drinking it.
And there came the surprise…
Even when the brew is hot, it feels cooling and refreshing. The taste is also much smoother than I expected, most probably as a result from the rose petals sparkled everywhere in the tea (which looks very lovely as well).
The only drawback I see to it is that the brew has a slight toothpaste taste, when the brew is really hot; the mint taste is much more natural and pleasant when it cools down slightly.
Tonight I had absolutely no hesitation in what I felt like drinking.
I believe this should also make an excellent ice tea, and it would also be perfect at the office to replace Rouge Rushka that I’ve almost finished.
An almost perfect hit.