Strange VariaTEA TTB #21
I didn’t get much cranberry from this, but it definitely had a soda-like quality with a pleasant lemon/lime flavor and a nice effervescence from the green rooibos. (Side note: why don’t more tea companies use green rooibos instead of red??? It has a way more pleasant flavor, IMO.) It was a bit weird drinking it hot (like a warm, flat soda) but I’ll bet it would be super refreshing iced or as a cold brew. If we were headed into summer instead of winter right now, I might hang onto this for some summer iced tea!
Flavors: Citrus, Lemon, Lime
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Generally speaking green rooibos is a lot more expensive than red rooibos because so much less of it is produced every year. It’s a bit of a viscous circle because the reason less is produced is mostly just because of the overall popularity of red rooibos – but blenders are kind of incentivized to use red over green because of the lower cost/availability which only furthers it’s popularity because of the greater reach… :/
Also, for quite some time South Africa was experiencing a really terrible drought so yields were lower just in general which caused the prices of both to jump up quite significantly because there was less supply for the same demand. There was even less incentive for production of green rooibos because, well, why spend your resources producing something that’s harder to sell? :(
That stinks, but makes sense. Thanks for sharing your insider info in this area! :)
Generally speaking green rooibos is a lot more expensive than red rooibos because so much less of it is produced every year. It’s a bit of a viscous circle because the reason less is produced is mostly just because of the overall popularity of red rooibos – but blenders are kind of incentivized to use red over green because of the lower cost/availability which only furthers it’s popularity because of the greater reach… :/
Also, for quite some time South Africa was experiencing a really terrible drought so yields were lower just in general which caused the prices of both to jump up quite significantly because there was less supply for the same demand. There was even less incentive for production of green rooibos because, well, why spend your resources producing something that’s harder to sell? :(
That stinks, but makes sense. Thanks for sharing your insider info in this area! :)