Redespresso

Shipment from Tekompaniet in cooperation with red espresso

I have just received a delivery from Tekompaniet a Swedish tea supplier in cooperation with Redespresso, the South African manufacturer of Redespresso. The generous delivery contains two bags of 250 gr. Redespresso, a serving spoon, a Redespresso filter for the espresso machine and a magazine of the products from Tekompaniet.

The adventure started back in 2005, because of Carl Pretorius´s habit of drinking too much espresso. Carl was supposed to take a coffee break, but one day he went in the kitchen searching for alternatives for an espresso shot, at that time the rooibos tea was fairly close to the espresso machine and he started experimenting. The course was set, he didn’t want a decaf or tea, but something with the health benefits of the tea. He found the right quality of rooibos tea and the right grind setting for the espresso shot and started serving for friends. The feedback was positive and this lead the rooibos cappuccino went on the menu, at some of Carl’s friends who owned a coffee shop. Redespresso was hereby introduced to the café environment and the awards started roiling in, actually the firm won five awards in just five years. Three of the awards was for the invention, including the first South African tea company to earn coffee´s highest honor at The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) by winning the Best New Product (Specialty Beverage Award 2008/09). In the same year, Tea Expo 2009 voted Redespresso as a Top Ten Best New Product, cause of their use of tea in untraditional way. In other words, this company have grown exponentially both in size and in reputation.

Red espresso consist purely of African rooibos tea and is patented grinded fine enough to be used in your own espresso machine for a nice shot of red espresso. If you don’t know what rooibos tea is, here is an explanation; Rooibos is definitely not a coffee, as you might expect, it’s a tea and is sometimes known as bush tea or red tea. It’s originally grown in South Africa and holds no caffeine, but contains an antioxidant level that far exceeds tea or coffee. Therefore a con of this brewing is that its healthier, cause of the ten times more antioxidants than in normal rooibos tea.   

I can´t wait to try this alternative, but I have been in contact with the danish supplier of the Rocket espresso machines, which I soon will loan a Rocket Evoluzione Giotto machine to run some test on. I have received a filter cup, which fits a 58 mm portafilter and therefore is perfect for a test on the Giotto, cause the filter cup will not fit on my Francis Francis X1 machine.

I expect to run some Redespresso tests in the beginning of the next week.

// Hendrup