An organic caffeine-free blend of rooibos and goji berries from POP TEE — sweet, red and gentle.
Rooibos grows in one place on earth. Aspalathus linearis is native to the Cederberg mountains north of Cape Town and grows commercially nowhere else — repeated attempts to establish it elsewhere have failed, because it depends on a specific combination of soil, climate and a symbiotic soil bacterium. Every cup of rooibos in the world comes from an area smaller than many European counties.
Why it never turns bitter. Rooibos contains almost no tannin, which is the compound responsible for astringency and bitterness in over-brewed black tea. You can leave rooibos steeping for twenty minutes, or all afternoon, and it simply becomes stronger and sweeter. This makes it uniquely forgiving — and it is why rooibos is the standard answer for households with children, for people who forget the pot, and for anyone who wants something warm and red at ten at night. It is naturally caffeine-free, not decaffeinated: nothing has been removed.
The red colour is not natural to the leaf. Rooibos is green when picked. The characteristic red-brown colour and sweet, woody flavour develop through oxidation — the leaves are bruised, heaped and left to ferment in the sun, exactly as black tea is processed. Unfermented “green rooibos” also exists and tastes completely different: grassy, lighter, and far less familiar.
Goji berries, and one caution that genuinely matters. Lycium barbarum, the wolfberry, is a nightshade relative long used in Chinese cooking and medicine, and it brings a mild, slightly savoury sweetness. The caution: there are documented case reports of goji berries interacting with warfarin, raising INR and bleeding risk. If you take warfarin or another vitamin K antagonist, speak to your doctor or pharmacist before drinking goji regularly. That is a small, specific and real risk, and it is almost never printed anywhere.
No health claims. Goji has been marketed extraordinarily hard as a superfood; the EU authorises no health claims for it. It is a nice berry in a lovely, forgiving, caffeine-free tea.
Available at Só Verde, an organic concept store in Foz, Porto.
POP TEE
POP TEE
POP TEE
