Rose Hip Tea

Today I’m alternating between soup and tea in order to quiet my cough. But since I really don’t need to OD on caffeine, I thought I’d make the next tea an herbal. Okay, so there is a tiny bit of black tea in this. But based on the leaves, it’s too tiny to really count so I’m thinking I’m okay.

Dry, this smells sweet and woodsy and a little like dried fruit. I can’t figure out exactly what kind of fruit… maybe a fruit roll up? That’s sorta dried fruit, right? Or not. Anyway, brewed, it smells a bit like the apple cider TheraFlu. Yeah, this might not be pretty. Not that I wasn’t worried before. I mean, the description plainly states that it is using hibiscus to enhance the present tartness of rose hip.

Now, I’m not one that follows the school of thought that all hibiscus is evil. I just think that there is a place for it. It’s like the food service at my college – their food was pretty bland but about my junior year, one of the chefs apparently discovered that if they added spice to the food, it wouldn’t be tasteless and bland. Now, that is true, but when everything tastes like red pepper? Not that big of an improvement. Same with hibiscus. In certain situations it can be good and help accentuate the flavors already present. But to depend upon it to provide the sole taste? Not cool. So I’m hoping this really isn’t hibiscus flavored tea.

Huh. This is hard to describe. Okay, first off: the hibiscus. Yes, it is there. But it isn’t overpowering. It adds a lighter (and yes, slightly tart) note on the tail of the tea. It gives me a little bit of the phlegm-y feeling when piping hot that I get from hibiscus flavored things and I could do without that, but again, the hibiscus isn’t the dominant flavor and the phlegm-producing tang calms down a little as it cools a smidge.

Now, on to what I can only assume is rose hip (having never tasted it before). It’s very woodsy and a bit flat. The hibiscus does help fluff it up a little. And it is a bit tart but in a sweeter, darker way from the hibiscus. So in this case, the hibiscus does actually round out the flavor of the rose hip, giving it more depth. That’s good. I could probably do with a little less hibiscus but credit to this tea for having a distinct non-hibiscus taste going on.

So how do the tastes go together? This is going to sound weird, but this tastes like marinara sauce. No, seriously. There’s the darker initial flavor which is kind of like a roasted, slightly spiced, mellower tang and then it lightens to end on a tomato-like brighter tang. That might be the cold talking but seriously, that’s what I get. I even made the husband have some (sharin’ the germs) and he didn’t look at me like I was insane. He even said that he could see that with the tang at the end. So I’m not totally insane.

Now I feel like I need some pasta. I’m drinking tomato sauce. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. I might actually like it but I can’t get over the weirdness factor. Ultimately, while I don’t hate this tea, it confuses me enough that I’m gonna have to go a little towards the ‘meh’ face. Because I’m drinking marinara sauce.

Overall impression: this is tomato juice. Definitely an interesting, one-of-a-kind tea experience.

Rose hips are used for a variety of purposes, one being tea and one being itching powder! I’m not sure if that will psychologically affect my rating or not, but it sure is weird. Hibiscus is a flower.

The dry leaves smell interesting, not really like tea at all. In fact, I wonder what actual tea leaves are in this (it says black herbal tea, but I’m not getting any black tea leaf aroma). The liquor is dark like a black tea though.

Some other Steepster users have described it as similar to pasta sauce, and I can definitely smell the similarity. To me, the brewed tea smells like tomato with a hint of onion.

The blend does have ample servings of rose hips in it. I actually squished them with my tea bag squeezer tongs and this red paste oozed out. That’s a first! It only solidified the pasta sauce comparison in my head, but you have to appreciate Lupicia didn’t skimp on the ingredients.

With the aroma of pasta sauce fresh in my mind, I took my first sip. Wow, I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but this tastes EXACTLY like warm tomato juice! I think I could literally pour this over a plate of pasta and not be disappointed (except perhaps for the watery consistency).

It is quite tart when it first hits your tongue, but that tartness fades once you swallow. This is a very flavorful cup! It’s definitely not something I would want to drink when I feel like tea. To me, I can’t find any real tea in the aroma or flavor at all. Also, I get no hint of flowery hibiscus (unless hibiscus tastes like tomato).

But if you love tomato juice, you’d probably love this tea. I’ve never really been a fan of V8, so I’m gonna’ pass this cup along to my beau. He absolutely loves tomato juice. Sure enough, when I handed it to him he tried it and said, “I really like this! You’re really not gonna’ drink it? ‘Cause I will!”

No Thank You… This was awful. It taste so bad I spit it out.

This is one of the 30 tea bags from Lupicia’s “The Book of Tea”! It’s the Christmas gift that I purchased for myself. :) Like all of Lupicia’s tea gifts, it has a gorgeous package, with the tea bags in different shades of rainbow! I had great difficulty deciding which tea to start with because I haven’t tried most of the teas in this gift set… but then I saw this. ROSE HIP TEA! “Tartness enhanced by hibiscus”, according to the description on the package! I knew it would be the perfect tea because I would not feel sorry AT ALL to see it go!

This tea had a ruby red colour when steeped. It’s truly beautiful, but it looked dangerous too. Even though I had given myself full psychological preparation beforehand, the tartness of hibiscus was still too much to take. :0 I totally agree with other reviewers – it tasted like tomato sauce, especially when it’s hot! It’s weird that something totally unrelated to tomato could taste so strikingly similar to it. Definitely not meant to be consumed as a beverage, in my opinion…

I am sure that after the tea has cooled it would be slightly more drinkable (in my experience, the tomato flavour will be less prominent), but if tea-drinking is supposed to be enjoyable, I just can’t see the point of forcing myself to finish the whole cup! I look forward to my next tea from The Book of Tea!

This tea is very very high in vitamin C, if you get the dried leaves then after the cup of tea you can enjoy chewing on the soft parts of the flower which reminds me kind of like a gummie.

I will refrain from giving this a score because I generally dislike Hibiscus. I gave this a shot because Lupicia has made me into a believer for a few teas that I thought there was no chance I’d like…

With that, just no.. nonononononononono

So after adding the book and Christina’s swap, my final count (not including this one) is now: 283. Definitely not the direction I wanted to go but still very exciting.

Anyways, as for the tea, all the reviews are so incredibly horrible that I was petrified when brewing up this tea. I asked my mom to just grab me a random teabag and this is what she brought me and basically my thoughts were “let’s get this over with”. I let it cool completely and braced myself for the first sip of tarty awfulness. However, this was weirdly much sweeter than I anticipated. It’s mostly just juice that is almost a little bit rose and a little bit… vegetable? Someone described this as “tomato” juice and perhaps it is the power of suggestion but I get it. So weird and not something I would want again but also not as bad as I anticipated so I guess that’s a win.