This gorgeous red rooibos tea is one of my favourite discoveries of the year.
South African in origin, rooibos is high in antioxidants and naturally caffeine-free. It’s gentle sweet flavour pairs beautifully with a number of different fruits, herbs and spices creating a different taste sensation each time.
The featured blend, and subject of my discovery, contains our family’s current favourite: a combination of red rooibos, chocolate, mint and orange.
This tea infusion is so delicious and flavourful you may find yourself reaching for it for dessert – (and believe me, you won’t feel deprived!).
With its negligible calories, health promoting properties and wonderfully refreshing taste, this mint chocolate rooibos iced tea is a perfect choice any time of day.
Mint Chocolate Rooibos Iced Tea
For 6 cups of iced tea:
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3 Tbsp quality rooibos tea leaves (plan on approximately 1 + 1/2 tsp of tea per cup)
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1/3 cup fresh chocolate mint leaves (+ more for garnish)
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1 tsp grated dark chocolate or 2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
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Orange slices
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Notes:
You can create your own delicious mint chocolate sensation using the recipe above or you can save yourself a step by using DavidsTea’s delicious mint chocolate rooibos mixture and simply garnishing with mint sprigs and orange slices.
Either way, you will love this one!
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Brings 6 cups of fresh cold water to a boil (or just short of a boil) in your kettle.
Combine rooibos tea and chocolate shavings or cocoa powder in an infuser set in a teapot and top with chocolate mint leaves. Pour heated water over the tea mixture and infuse to taste (ideally somewhere between 5-7 minutes), ensuring that the tea mixture is fully submerged in the water.
Remove infuser. Pour tea over ice filled glasses, adding orange slices and fresh mint for garnish. Place any remaining tea in a container in fridge to cool with additional orange slices and mint (lately I’ve been keeping a full pitcher going in the fridge – we can’t seem to get enough!).
awesome i love rooibos tea
This sounds wonderful! I love mint and chocolate so I imagine I would love this tea!
One of my favorite teas is a black variety infused with chocolate–I’ve never thought to make it myself–this is brilliant! I’ve got a tin of rooibos tea–must try this. :)
Kelly, just your photos have me wanting this tea. I’ve never heard of rooibos but I’ll be on the lookout for it now. It sounds like it could almost substitute for dessert!
What a great recipe Kelly! I love Rooibos tea but usually just drink it straight or plain. The chocolate addition is just brilliant:)
ROOIBOS!!! omfg, i love red tea! it’s not actual tea AND full of SOOO many antioxidants! i switched from black to red tea recently;, i got hooked on a double chocolate red tea from a local tea bar, 52teas.com ( previously zoomdweebies, also manteas.com!!) and since then, the ownder, Frank, has me hooked!
I am a coffee drinker but during the summer months, I’d love tea more. The combination of this refreshing mix you have is something I cannot let pass…Pretty presentation too!
Anyhoo, we have just recently launched a food photo submission site, http://www.yumgoggle.com/gallery/ that allows you to showcase all your great work and share it with all of our visitors. Your phenomenal photos have caught our attention. We’d be proud to have your work as part of our growing collection to continue to have a larger reach and further inspire all fellow food lovers out there! (sorry for the blatant shameless plug)!
What perfect and tasty looking drinks!
Hi Sally! I think you would really enjoy rooibos particularly given your sensitivity to caffeine. It also happens to taste wonderful…
I think DavidsTea just opened up a store in NYC!! You’ll have to check out our fave Canadian tea shop in your backyard. Wait till you smell some of the combinations Amy… you may be surprised how satisfying and sweet (ok, it may not cover *all* the dessert bases but pretty darn close ;-)
you had me at ‘truffle’ ;-).
Hi KoKo, if you’ve not yet discovered DavidsTea you’ve got to get there! (Just walking in to the store is a mind-body experience ;-) I highly recommend their mint chocolate rooibos mixture for this iced tea. The flavours are well saturated into the blend and difficult to mimic (home brews are yummy in their own right but maybe not as developed taste wise).
Sounds delicious! I have some chocolate mint growing in my garden that might be a perfect match for this tea.
Kelly,
this is absolutley lovely. Dark Chocolate? Yes, this would make me want to try this. Healthy? Even better.
Are you well, dearest? X enjoying your summer?
Sooo pretty, Kelly. We love Rooibos tea, such a comforting flavour and pairing it with mint and chocolate sounds interesting. What a lovely afternoon refresher.
Hi Sissi, thank you so much for your complimentary words! I’m delighted that you like the photo; I was pretty happy with how things turned out. You know how tricky food photography can be so it’s nice when an image that you have in your mind can be executed on the page…
Rooibos is naturally caffeine-free (and low in tannins) – so yes, you can drink it in the evenings as well and it shouldn’t interfere with your rest. That’s partly why it’s such a great dessert option – the other part is that it tastes so darn good!! :)
Kelly, this is my favourite of all your photos (at least those I have seen on your blog). It’s beautiful, appetising and all the items are perfectly arranged and photographed. I love it!
I also love the idea of putting chocolate into tea. You are the only one I know who could dare such a creative step. I used to drink a lot of rooibos once and must still have some left at the back of my cupboards. It’s high time to take it out! Thanks for this wonderful idea!
PS If I remember well rooibos can be even drunk before going to sleep. It apparently doesn’t contain theine.
Wow, what a different and great idea except for the fact that I don’t enjoy rooibos tea – sure it will be a delicious using normal Ceylon tea.
:-) Mandy
This looks so refreshing! Love the presentation.
Ooo I like the idea of adding a little chocolate to my iced tea!
Yum, rooibos! Yes, chocolate would be so delicious with that good stuff…
Oh this sounds amazing- I am a fan of rooibos, too. I keep hearing about David’s Tea!!
One of my favorite non-caffeinated teas is a Chocolate Mint Truffle Rooibos from Mighty Leaf Tea. Who would have thought I could make something similar and better at home? Well, Kelly would! I can’t wait to get the ingredients to make this! So refreshing and, with the grated chocolate – elegant!
Oh my, I think you’ve started something here Kelly! I never thought to put shaved chocolate into a tea before…! Your photos are gorgeous and make me want to brew a cup. Fabulous idea!!
That sounds super delicious. I didn’t know that by putting chocolate in a tea infuser would work. That is super cool. I’ll have to try that.
Gorgeous photo! I love rooibos but have to admit it’s been forever since I did any fancy teas in my infuser…hmmm I need to break that bad boy out!
What a great idea to add chocolate to tea! Chocolate added to anything improves it, in my humble opinion.
Gorgeous pics, Kelly. I’ve never heard of Rooibos, but I’m a HUGE herbal tea drinker and will definitely be trying this. I’m not sure if I could be it my entiiire dessert, but my dessert appetizer for sure ;)
There’s nothing I love more than a nice iced tea. I definitely have to try this recipe before summer is out :)
I’ve never heard of this kind of tea. It sounds fun though. I bet this was great dockside at the lake.
This is such a creative twist on tea – love it, Kelly!!
Ooooh I will be on look out my friend this looks incredible – so refreshing and you present it perfectly :)
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
never heard of this tea, but you know I’m all into it now, and will try to find some
seems awesome to me, I think the addition of chocolate turns it into something out of this world!
as usual, a very inspired edible! ;-)