Rooibos Tea

[deboard]

Anyone else had Rooibos tea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooibos

A friend talked me into buying some, and I gotta say it's pretty fantastic. Supposed to be naturally caffeine free. I was looking for something interesting (besides wine) to drink at night. This particular one is a peach-rooibos tea.

Next question, of course is, anybody made wine from it? I assume it would be a similar process to any other tea wine.

I've only ever had one other tea wine, and I didn't really like it too much, but I'm kinda interested in trying to make wine from this tea.

 

[tonyt]

I sell Rooibos tea, straight and blended with other herbs. It is not technically tea but an herbal teazine. I am not nuts for straight Rooibos but love some of the blends. There are cocktails bartenders are mading with Rooibos infusions si wine would not be out of the question. There is also a liquid Rooibos product marketed to bars that actually might be easy to make into a wine. Keep us posted if you make wine from it.

 

[deboard]

I think I have decided to try a 1 gallon batch and see how it goes. I haven't tried the straight rooibos either, this is a peach blend, my friend and his wife prefer the raspberry blend.

 

[mushroombrew]

I was a bit curious about this myself. I was reading the back of a box of Twinings Rooibos (straight - No flavors) today and it said the leaves were "fermented" and that got the gears turning. Turns out they're actually just oxidized like real black tea though. So I made up a gallon with 16 tea bags and added enough sugar to get the specific gravity up to 1.10. Waiting for it to cool down now before I pitch the yeast. Going to be using Red Star Champagne yeast as it's all I have on hand, plus a teaspoon of yeast nutrient. I'll let you know how mine turns out if it doesn't kill me.

 

[GreginND]

I am not a fan of the flavor. I've tried. But I just can't.

 

[mushroombrew]

It's definitely an acquired taste. Really the only thing I don't like about it is the medicinal aftertaste. In the past I had only made wines from fruits, juices, and raisins and I was bored this afternoon so I figured why not. I dunno. Might be tasty.

 

[jamesngalveston]

I agree i made a gallon just to test because i Love iced tea.
I did not care for mine, ended up and strawberry flavoring to it, and it was drinkable.

 

[mushroombrew]

Glad to see someone else has tried it at least. I found surprisingly little information on the web about it. What percentage of alcohol did you wind up with? Looking at about 12% with mine.