Trader Joe's Blood Orange Rooibos Herbal Tea

An affordable way to keep hydrated in the summer with a mild but citric taste to mask the nauseating flavour of plain water.

I picked this up at TJs about a week or so ago— it was 2 bucks and with the season changing to spring I was excited to make some iced tea to bring in the warmer weather.
I did a quick google search on rooibos, saw all of the positive feedback about it, and brought it home and started making lots of tea!
It tastes great iced. I didn’t add anything— no sweetener, no lemon, it was perfect just as it is.

About two or three days after I started drinking I woke up in the middle of the night with scary, intense heart palpitations. It alarmed me for sure, but I wrote it off as a nightmare mixed with poor sleep. Then things got even more frightening: The heart palpitations continued on the next day, all day, into the night…this has lasted for a week. I saw an urgent care doctor yesterday who tested all of my vitals (normal), did an ekg (heart was normal), X-ray (normal), iron and thyroid test (Thyroid came back today and was normal, still waiting on the iron) and the doctor essentially told me that I was very healthy and that if the palpitations persisted to see a cardiologist…well, last night I realized that the timeline meshed with the rooibos tea— I started researching and loads of people have had the same response. Apparently the side effects are uncommon, but not extremely so, you may very well have a bad response.

I would say pass on this tea. Or only drink It once a week or so, definitely don’t let it be a daily treat or you may suffer for the next few days with a heart beat so hard it looks like a cartoon falling in love and beating out of their chest.

A nice warm flavored rooibos for anytime of day. I steep a maximum of three minutes or else it becomes bitter, which I despise.

Leaves: bag
Measuring Spoon: no
Steep: 5 min
Aroma: none
Color: medium reddish brown
Clarity: Great

Taste: I was excited when I came across this tea on youtube so I had to give it a try. The packaging said to use cold water but for a first steep I wanted to try it with room temperature bottled water for 5 minutes. The first thing I did was detect the aroma but to my surprise there really wasn’t anything I noticed. As for the taste it wasn’t that great the first words that came to mind was sour citrus water. I understand it’s supposed to be tangy but I can see it probably being improved by adding some sweetener. I also want to give it a fair try so I will also be steeping using cold water (bottled or tap) so see how it comes out then. Using cold water first awakened the aroma citrus & the color was also darker. I didn’t dunk the bag as I did before steeping the first cup. The flavor this time was weak hot sour oranges. Overall I didn’t find this tea enjoyable.