Characteristics of the rooibos infusion with toasted almonds
This rooibos-based herbal tea actually includes other ingredients in addition to toasted almonds, such as papaya and even popcorn, but the intense flavor of toasted almonds make it the main ingredient together with rooibos in determining the taste of the herbal tea. Rooibos is commonly known as African red tea, too bad it is not a tea, it is an infusion that has a preparation similar to that of tea, a fairly similar flavor, only sweeter, with hints of earth and tobacco, but it is not a tea because in reality tea should only be used for infusions obtained from a plant native to the Far East whose scientific name is Camellia sinensis. Rooibos, on the other hand, as we said, is obtained from an African plant, South African to be precise, its origin is in the Cederberg region. The name was given to the plant by Dutch settlers, in fact the word rooibos is in Afrikaans and means red bush. And always remaining in the field of inaccuracies and misleading definitions, if the first is that rooibos is an infusion and not a tea, the second is that the plant is a bush, but it is not red at all!
The fact is that the Dutch use the word rooibos both to indicate the plant and the processed product, the latter does have a reddish color, but only because the originally green leaves of the plant become red during the fermentation process. To prepare rooibos, the leaves are first fermented, then dried and finally chopped.
The scientific name of the plant is Aspalathus linearis (linearis because the leaves are elongated) and it belongs to the Fabaceae family, that is, the legume family. Almonds are much less exotic, much more local and widespread in Europe since much more remote times, almonds are originally from the Near East and are mentioned in the Old Testament, in Europe they were already known by the Ancient Greeks and consequently by the Romans who called them "Greek nut", after all Greece is really close to the countries of origin. In the Middle Ages they were certainly popular in the courts of all Europe, Charlemagne for example worked hard for their introduction, according to other sources a decisive moment for the introduction was the First Crusade.
The almond is the edible seed of the almond tree which is a small tree (5-7 meters) whose scientific name is Prunus amygdalus, there is a variety of the plant that gives rise to bitter almonds, which are very poisonous, in fact they contain amygdalin which is the most important of the cyanogenic glycosides. in other words once a part is ingested it is transformed into hydrocyanic acid, i.e. cyanide. Very poisonous but there is no reason to be alarmed, because it is not possible that someone eats the dangerous quantity of bitter almonds by mistake, because the taste is truly intolerably bitter. Curiosity: to demonstrate that the poison lies in the quantity, bitter almonds are used in the confectionery industry in tiny (therefore harmless) quantities, for example they are responsible for the particular taste of the very famous amaretti, the almond-based sweets in which sweet almonds are combined with a small percentage of bitter almonds.
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