Oh noz! My final Red Rose K-cup review! For those of you who are late to the game, Red Rose gave me three different types of K-cups to review – English Breakfast, Original, and now, Naturally Decaffeinated.
For those of you who don’t know, decaffeinated tea STILL CONTAINS CAFFEINE. It is in trace amounts, but it is still present, so please tread lightly if you have any allergies to caffeine. Tea labeled as decaffeinated must have less than 2.5% of the original caffeine level.
Red Rose uses a process to decaffeinate their tea called the ethyl acetate, or EA, process, which is also the most widely used method in the US. Basically, this means that the chemical ethyl acetate, which is found naturally in tea, is used as a solvent to extract the caffeine.
Now, the most important question – how is the tea?
Red Rose Naturally Decaffeinated Tea
The first thing that I noticed about the tea was that it was lighter in appearance than the others. While this normally is not a bad thing, it did sadly translate over into taste a bit. I only tasted a hint of the tea and have not been able to figure out why. I did find that the ethyl acetate is very difficult to remove and can leave a chemical taste to the tea sometimes. However, thankfully, this was not the case. The tea was just a bit weak for my taste. It smells strong, and I brewed it in the Keurig as I did the other teas, but for some reason, this one is just not working for me.
So, in short, while I do love Red Rose tea, I am not sure if I will be running off to purchase more K-cups. I might get the Original since that tasted like normal Red Rose tea, but the English Breakfast tasted just like the Original, so I’m not sure if that is worth it.
So Red Rose, I do thank you, and I will keep buying your tea bags, but your K-cups are not my cup of tea.
Tea Love 