Rooibos Creme Caramel

Sipdown! (20/287) still a long way to go.

Honestly I’ve had better. Not bad, but not great either. It’s a good quality rooibos, smooth and without that weird chemical taste you sometimes get from the poorer quality varieties. The flavour is sweet, and a little creamy, but I think I would sooner call this vanilla rooibos than creme caramel. It is good without sweetener or milk, though, which is a plus. In fact, when I did add both they did very little for the tea so I would probably recommend this one plain. The flavours blend together well, and it could almost pass as unflavoured.

I had been drinking rooibos semi-regularly for a while, until one day my usual dealer was out of stock. Desperation made me turn to an impressive but expensive little tea and coffee bean shop just off Aberdeen’s high street – http://dft.ba/-9PBo (not my image, twitter account or self).

Anyway, I was in a rush so i had a quick look around and grabbed the only rooibos i could find. I’ve seen teapigs for sale in a few other shops, mainly cafés, so i wasn’t sure what to expect, but i gave it a chance anyway. And i’m glad i did, the tea is a delightfully smooth drink with slightly fruity, earthy tones. The caramel isn’t overpoweringly sweet, it’s a good compliment, something i wouldn’t have expected. And it’s only really present on the first steeping.

That was another pleasant surprise – yes, these are teabags, but they’re triangular based pyramids made of some high quality silk like material that doesn’t stain or absorb water like filter paper ones. And as long as you don’t rip it when undoing the string, you can re-steep them at least three times. Supposedly biodegradable too. I added five minutes per steeping, starting at roughly five minutes with water fresh from the boil. But since rooibos doesn’t contain any tannin you can be pretty lax with your timings. This more than made up for the somewhat meagre fifteen bags included in the pack.

All in all a good, convenient, staple tea if you can find it for a reasonably price. I’ve been drinking it probably more than anything else lately so i’ll definitely be looking to get some more.

Sipdown!! (187)

This is another from the amazing Nattie (thank you!!!). It reminds me a lot off DAVIDs Creme Caramel rooibos which I did not love so much. The rooibos is just too strong and medicinal for my tastes and I find I am always searching for the caramel. So far Teapigs have failed to impress but that’s alright since you can’t love everything and if you have to not like something, best it be something you can’t get easily anyways :). I am grateful for the chance to try it though.

This tea was ok. I usually like Rooibos tea, and I have an extremely sweet tooth, so I was excited to try this tea from my sample box that I received for Christmas. I firstly tried the tea without milk. There was a distinct lack of sweetness in the tea, which I found odd considering it’s supposed to be a crème caramel flavoured tea. I then added milk and was still disappointed. Although the taste was slightly creamier, the tea itself still wasn’t as sweet as I would like and, to me, didn’t taste like a crème caramel at all. My housemate tried my tea, and she has less of a sweet tooth than myself, and she disagreed with me, saying it did taste like a crème caramel, so I suppose it’s all up to personal preference!