Hibiscus Sadariffa

What is Hibiscus tea or tisane?
The herbal drink made from hibiscus flowers is simply known as the hibiscus tisane. The liquor is red in color, has a sour / tart flavor, and contains vitamin C and minerals.

The hibiscus tisane is made from the calyces (sepals) of this plant which are bright in color and sour in taste. Because of this, the liquor also turns out to be red in color and sour and tangy in taste like the cranberry juice. People across the globe have different preferences of how they have their hibiscus tisane; few prefer it to be hot while others prefer it to be cold.
(Taken from What is Hibiscus tisane and why is it healthy?)

During the last three years of the 1970s, I was in college. I was exposed to many things I had never seen or heard of while growing up. Three food things that I remember most were tofu (bean curd), bulgur (cracked wheat), and hibiscus. Hibiscus was probably the hippiest of all things I could remember. It even sounded exotic, like an orchid. It was a flower that was used to make an infusion that people would drink either hot or cold. It was a substitute for tea or coffee and it claimed to have high health and healing properties (anti-oxidants and Vitamin C, for starters).

I never gave hibiscus much thought because I have always relied on my hot beverages to pump me with caffeine. And while I have pretty much always accepted coffee and tea as equally wonderful drinks of choice, I do admit that I generally am fussier about the tea I choose over the coffee. For the past few months, I have decreased coffee intake to one cup per day. So naturally, I want it to be the good stuff. I've also trained myself to take it black.

So now that my caffeinated coffee levels have decreased, I am working on doing something with tea. Tea has caffeine no matter what color you make (i.e., yellow, black, green, white, gold, oolong, pu'erh). So now I am looking at tisanes as a way to have a hot beverage that is healthy and satisfying. I made a trip to my local teamaster and got myself a 4 oz bag of hibiscus and another 4 oz bag of dried mango and apple mixed with hibiscus.

The drink should help me sleep. That's always a good thing. Sadly, it's also a diuretic so I expect I will be making bathroom breaks throughout the night. There are worse things that could happen to a nice guy like me.

The only other tisane that I have had with any regularity is chamomile. I do have some of those Zinger type tea bag drinks that were given to me. They are not any sort of go-to drink for me, but they are good to have on hand when large quantities of non-caffeinated cold beverages are in demand. I will keep tabs on my satisfaction levels with this newly-refound drink.