Numi Sweet African Red Green Rooibos Tea Review

Serve This Tea to Someone You Don't Like

Summary : This tea may be healthy...but that doesn't make it good. This tea has a rather harsh and bitter taste, and the flavor of honey is all but absent. For a healthy tea, stick with other more pleasant green or black teas.

Review : I've really come to like Numi Teas. I really have. In comparison to other "supermarket" bagged teas, Numi Teas rise above the crowd in both their quality and their flavor. For this reason, I'm never hesitant to try a new Numi Tea, as I figure I'll like it to at least some degree. It may not qualify as a favorite tea, but I never suspected that a Numi tea would make my "bottom of the barrel" tea list either.

Well, I was wrong. My high sailing with Numi Teas came crashing down when I gave their Sweet African Red Green Rooibos tea a try this evening. It wasn't a pleasant experience, I'm afraid to say.

Here is how Numi describes this tea on their website : "This well kept South African secret comes from the same plant as Rooibos (Red Tea), yet is not sun dried, yielding an amazingly beneficial and nourishing cup. Green Rooibos' elevated anti-oxidant activity surpasses even that of green tea! Its light, smooth woody taste is sweetly accented by healthy Honeybush. Organic Honeybush is also rich in anti-oxidants and phytoestrogens and imparts natural wild honey tones. Together, these gifts of nature will nurture good health and please you with their gentle earthy aroma."

This organic tea contains exactly two ingredients : Green Rooibos and Honeybush.

Wow...for once Numi did not somehow make the description of this tea seem way overdramatic and exotic. Guess the normal person who writes up the description for their teas must have been on vacation or something. See other reviews of Numi teas on this site to see what I mean!

And once I tasted this tea, I discovered why Numi didn't flatter this tea in their description like they do their other teas. Quite simply, this tea is pretty bad. I like rooibos teas, and I like green rooibos teas, but I definitely don't like this tea.

First off, I found the taste rather harsh and somewhat bitter. I brewed the tea for 5 minutes, so the tea shouldn't have been "killer strong," yet it was. God only knows what this tea would taste like if you brewed it for 7 or more minutes.

Secondly, the after-taste in this tea is less than pleasant. The bitterness of this tea just lingers and lingers and lingers. I like a good lingering after-taste...assuming of course that the after-taste is tasty. Sadly, this tea doesn't have that characteristic. Indeed, I would have to classify the after-taste as just plain bad.

Thirdly, where's the honey taste? If you really, really stretched your imagination a bit, you might be able to find just a trace of honey flavor in this tea. But well, its past my bedtime, and I really don't feel like stretching my imagination that far...so I won't.

Overall, this tea may be a healthy tea to drink. But...if the taste is bad, why drink it? After all, all green teas are good for you, as are black teas and rooibos teas too. So there is no need to torture yourself to the pain of drinking this rather unpleasant tea.

Recommendation : No. While it may be true that this tea contains more anti-oxidants than green tea, quite truthfully, it isn't worth getting those extra anti-oxidants by choking down this tea. Instead...drink an extra cup of green tea instead. Or have some red wine with your dinner. Both of those strategies are better than drinking this tea simply for its health benefits.

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