Rooibos Vanilla – Teabags

Rooibos Vanilla from A.C. Perch's Thehandel, creamy and caffeine-free

Rooibos Vanilla from Perch's Thehandel is a red rooibos from South Africa, whose infusion smells of vanilla, cream, and white chocolate. It remains smooth even after a long steeping time because rooibos is naturally caffeine-free and contains hardly any tannins.

Rooibos Vanilla is the evening tea from the Copenhagen tea house Perch's Thehandel, flavored with notes of vanilla, cream, and white chocolate. The box contains 25 pyramid bags, each individually packed in an airtight sleeve so the warm fragrance doesn't fade while sitting in the pantry.

Warm vanilla on red rooibos

As soon as you pour the hot water, the scent of vanilla wafts through the kitchen, followed by something creamy that brings to mind the filling of a cream puff. The infusion itself glows a clear red-brown, darker than any black tea could achieve in the same steeping time.

On the tongue, the tea is soft and full-bodied, with that quiet, woody sweetness inherent to rooibos. The white chocolate adds a round, milky tone without any sugar being involved. Where a black tea becomes astringent after five minutes, this infusion remains calm, as it contains almost no tannins.

This makes it an uncomplicated tea for people who like to forget about the tea bag. It forgives being left in the pot for ten minutes just as much as a second infusion, and children can drink it in the evening because it contains no caffeine.

Evenings on the sofa, with or without milk

The pyramid bag gives the coarse cut room to expand in the hot water, whereas a flat paper bag compresses it. With rooibos, this is more significant than with fine leaves because the shoots are short and bulky, and the water needs to circulate through them.

Use boiling water and a steeping time of five to seven minutes; after that, you can leave the bag in. The tea tastes creamy and clear on its own; with a splash of milk, it becomes almost a dessert in a cup, and half a spoon of honey further enhances the vanilla.

It pairs effortlessly with shortbread, rice pudding, or a slice of brioche because its sweetness follows the same profile. Cold-brewed and steeped overnight, it makes an iced tea that pairs well with a strip of orange peel. The Green Rooibos Sea Breeze is fruitier and fresher, while the Cool Herbal is cooler and more herbaceous. Both are available on our shelf of loose-leaf tea and bags.

Rooibos from the Cederberg Mountains

Rooibos grows as a shrub with needle-fine shoots, botanically far removed from the tea plant, and thrives exclusively in the Cederberg Mountains north of Cape Town. All attempts to cultivate it elsewhere have failed to date. The shoots are cut, crushed, and left in damp piles, during which time they turn from green to red-brown.

It is precisely this maturation that produces the woody-sweet depth upon which the vanilla here rests. In contrast, untreated green rooibos tastes brighter and grassier, which is why the two are so distinct on the shelf. Perch's Thehandel works with red, fully matured rooibos, whose sweetness supports the cream aroma rather than disappearing alongside it. More from Copenhagen can be found in the Perch's Thehandel collection.