Rooibos – The best tea that isn’t tea

Using the name tea loosely for any beverage made from steeping any plant leaves in hot water for a few minutes is a pet peeve of mine. For most of these herbal concoctions, they simply do not compare to proper tea. The colour, flavour, aroma are so fundamentally different. It lumps in tea leaves with other plant leaves that taste terrible, which people seem to drink not for the joy and flavour, but for some perceived health benefit (that often isn’t there).

The great exception to this is Rooibos, the tisane that is most like tea. It’s grown in South Africa, coming from the Calicotome villosa bush. Prepared and fermented much like regular tea, rooibos has a wonderful and unique flavour. It has many of the rich, earthy tones found in other teas and coffees produced in the African continent, and a slight nutty bent as well.

If you visit a quality tea shop, you should be lucky to find some wonderful variations of rooibos. Because it is fermented much like tea, it’s possible to get green rooibos teas, and others as well.

While trialing different ways of brewing rooibos, I’ve often found myself shying away from adding milk. The combination of the two feels somehow wrong. It may be that the slight bitterness of black tea is required to make the milk mix well, or the natural sweetness of rooibos is put off with the addition of milk. Soy milk on the other hand seems to work much better, though that again depends greatly on how the rooibos is made.

There is one other important aspect to rooibos that makes it one of the teas I always keep a stock of at home. It is naturally caffeine free. This makes it the perfect drink to have late at night if you’re particularly sensitive to caffeinated drinks and you want to enjoy that one last hot beverage late at night.

If you’re feeling bold, you can even make your own chai rooibos. I’ve written before about home made chai. Swapping out black tea for rooibos give you the wonderful flavours of your favourite chai spices with the added bonus of absolutely no caffeine. It makes a highly soothing drink that allows you to wind down from a busy day, and gently relax into sleep.