Rooibos Oriental

DF Advent — Day 11

Rooibos Oriental has a really smooth red rooibos taste that doesn’t come across as medicinal to me. It’s more like cedar with black currant. Woody yet smooth. The flavorings are supposed to be passionfruit, bush peach and strawberry. Dammann Frères has a great passionfruit flavoring but I don’t taste it here. What makes itself known, however muddled the fruitiness presents, is the peach and strawberry combination. This tastes like the 1980s to me, which has happened with another fruity rooibos from August Uncommon whose name I can’t recall. Rooibos Oriental is fine enough but nothing I’d want to keep on hand, considering I prefer unflavored rooibos.

Adventageddon Day 11

Definitely not a fan of the name of this tea – I think DF probably could have picked a name without roots in colonialism and the broad fetishization/exoticism of Asian people and culture that would have still gotten the “vibe” of the tea across…

But, name aside, I also just didn’t love the taste of this tea either. I’m not 100% what the fruit flavour is supposed to be, but to me it tasted like maybe a mix of red fruit and a more pine-y and resinous mango? It was very medicinal though, and the more I drank the cup the more it started to remind me of cherry cough syrup.

So, unfortunately, hard pass on this blend for me.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDdEnRYpD_0/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/RHqsYVpf4Kc?si=dx2VDqi8SmbiWwBx

Good rooibos, the taste of fruit is a bit light.