I am trying to clear out some of my old teas. Which include a lot of bagged teas. This one is at minimum 10+ years old. I am pretty sure I bought this when North America jumped on the “Red Tea” wagon and tea companies like Tetley started coming out with bagged rooibos teas.
I never really got into rooibos tea. Some blends are ok. Most of the bagged ones are neither here nor there for me. This one still smells like strong medicinal rooibos and vanilla. As soon as the water hit the bag I got a strong sweet vanilla smell. I would say the sweetness was the pear, but I would not have called it pear if I hadn’t read the back of the canister.
The tea tastes like a not too bad creamy rooibos. There is a bit of a metallic after taste. I am actually tasting more pear than vanilla, but the vanilla is there in the background and is actually quite strong in the aftertaste.
Overall I would describe it as suitable for a bagged rooibos. There was only one tea bag left in the canister that was taking up space in my tea cupboard. Now I can buy more to fill up that space :P