/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>19658977
>is there a scene for high quality stuff?
Yes, but most of it is basically unobtainable unless you're willing to make phonecalls. Generally it's handled like a fungible good at every step, so producers will buy bags of the grass as long as it meets certain quality standards, chop it up, dry it. Wholesalers will buy it and grade it, then sell the grades in bulk to distributors who will either use it or repackage it and sell it on the commercial market. It's like flour, you're buying a quality guarantee but you have absolutely zero information on where it came from in most cases. This is the only one I'm aware of that ships to the US and seems to credibly not be the general basic production.
https://rareteacompany.us/products/south-african-wild-rooibos
It tastes fine, I don't know if I could tell a huge difference. The processing is not really complex so it's all made basically the same way from the same material. This is all almost certainly from the same place and same year so you get probably more variance between batches and more interesting flavors to compare but it really all pretty much just tastes the same.
https://mountainroseherbs.com/red-rooibos-tea
This is what I buy when I want to drink rooibos. There is also green rooibos, which is just unoxidized, and honeybush which is a similar plant and product, that I personally find more interesting. I have not tried green rooibos but some people seem to like it.