A Tale of Teatime Trials and Tribulations

Allow me to regale you with a tale of my #firstworldproblem teatime trials and tribulations. We walked over to David’s tea the other day, and being asian, we generally are unable to resist free samples of anything, let alone something we actually enjoy. So we grab two sample cups of their cold sweet tea, only to find out it’s some Rooibos blend. Now, for those of you that aren’t familiar with what Rooibos is, let me describe its flavour profile for you. To me, it tastes of vanilla, caramel, and cinnamon, … with a healthy heaping dose of poop. I find it repulsive. And here we were, with two full sample cups that we eagerly grabbed, and were too polite to dump…

On to the reason we went in the first place. I get inside to the store counter and the clerk asks what we think of the free sample. I reply that I’m not a fan of rooibos, but that I would like to buy a full tin of their Pineapple Oolong, because I can’t get enough of it. To my dismay, she replies that they have discontinued that tea.

WHAAAAAAAAT?!!

Luckily, she advises that they have replaced it with a ‘Grilled Pineapple tea’ with brown rice, so if you like the pineapple flavour, this will be similar. Phew… So I buy a tin of that (around $22), and saunter back to the office to get my brew on. As I’m sipping the freshly steeped tea, the aromatics of pineapple hit my nose, and it is glorious. Then there is the light nutty taste of brown rice… yum. And then there’s something else that doesn’t quite seem right. So I check the label, and oh what’s the first faaccking ingredient? ROOIBOS.

AARRRGGGGGH!!!!

Doing a bit of sleuthing on the internet, I learn that Rooibos comes from a plant in South Africa which “Scientists speculate that climate change may threaten the future survival of…” So I guess despite the problems posed by climate change, the silver lining is that there won’t be anymore vanilla, caramel, cinnamon and poop flavoured tea.

And so ends my rather long winded story about my 'can hardly be considered a problem' #firstworldproblem. Meh. Judge away.

From now on, guess I’ll have to stick to real teas, like these beautiful and fragrant jasmine pearls.