LUPICIA: LA VIE EN ROSE ROOIBOS REVIEW

Lupicia's La Vie En Rose is your typical black tea base is replaced with a caffeine free rooibos, and the tea is flavored with hibiscus, rose and rosehip. 

The official description from the Australian site lists:  

The combination of traditional rooibos, hibisucus and rosehips produces an alluring, slightly acidic ruby-red tea. Scented with rose, this tea performs well as a skin tonic. Drink as a pick-me-up, or when you wish to see the "rosy" side of life!

The Japanese site includes some other details, such as the tea being rich in Vitamin C, and that it has a really good aroma of rose. They also recommend this for daily drinking for those who care about beauty and health.

The ingredients in this tea are listed as : rooibos tea, hibiscus, rosehip, red rose, cornflower and 'flavor', which more accurately translated should be : 'scented item'. 

You can steep this tea for 3-5 minutes at 100 degrees celsius, but I will typically brew this at 90. 

In the tea bag, you can already get a whiff of a pretty tart, sour herbal note that you typically get from hibicus/rosehip blends, so if you're familiar and like those notes, you'll definitely like this tea. 

In comparison to the other rooibos blends, this is definitely much sharper in flavor profile than Piccolo. 

Despite having the same base, the scent due to all the other herbs and flowers make for a much herbal scent, and the aroma is very 'green', you definitely get more of that 'herbal', sort of post massage tea which is all health and 'mellow' sweetness - and when they say sweet its more that sort of boiled fruit sourness with none of the usual sugary goodness of proper fruit. 

When hot, I just get a really sharp and sour kick from the rosehip/hibiscus which basically overshadows most of the other flavors, and the sourness kinda just sits in your mouth being a general nuisance, wiping out all of the gentler rooibos flavor. After getting used to the sour note, the rose note is very nice in this - not like a sort of blanched white rose, but there's a very fresh green aspect to that rose, more like the scent of a rose in your mouth, which is really nice. It really turns into a nice typical rose tea without as much of the bitterness (which you can minimize with a lower water temperature). 

When warm, the tea is a lot nicer because the sour rosehip note just isn't as prominent and you get the nice fresh  rosey taste paired with the subtle rooibos base. On second brew with the same tea bag as well, the rose sticks around for much longer - which is nice. 

Cold, the sharpness from the sour notes are a little less dominant - and I could see this being super refreshing with some syrup and some ice on a summer's day - it might be perfect with some fizzy lemonade because of the matching tartness in the herbal/citrus pairing. 

Overall, this is a great choice for people who enjoy a tart and sharp type of tea - it's a really nice tea that does actually perk you up because it's not a calm and cozy tea like Piccolo, or any chamomile blend that is a comfortable tea. This really feels quite exciting to drink, and as it has some vitamin C in it as well, should be quite healthy if you find yourself on the verge of scurvy.