Roses vs. Rosehips: What's the Difference?

Botanical Favorites: Roses and Rosehips

Our ingredients should look familiar. All of our blends are made with plants most people have heard of: peppermint, spearmint, chamomile, and hibiscus to name a few. We seldom dive deeper into what these ingredients are and why we add them to our blends. Some ingredients are there strictly for flavor or aesthetics. Others contribute to supposed health benefits, too. (We can't promise that drinking our tea will make you immortal, but many of the botanical ingredients we used are believed to have health benefits.) Some are added for all of the reasons above! Let's dive a little bit deeper into two ingredients: Roses and Rosehips. 

Rose Petals and Rosehips

Rose petals and rosehips are two ingredients we use frequently.  Don't let their names fool you, though. Roses and rosehips aren't both flowers. In fact, rosehips are actually the seed pod from the rose plant! This seed pod is fruit-like and even resembles a crabapple. Rosehips are often pruned from rose bushes, which is why you don't see them often. 

Rosehips

We don't use rosehips too often. However, when we do, we do so for their nutritional value. They're slightly tart and like many other fruits, contain a good bit of Vitamin C. This tartness goes well with green tea, which makes our Green Pomegranate blend such a tangy treat.

Rose Petals

Roses, on the other hand, don't contribute vitamins, but instead, give a unique taste and aroma. Rose petals are often used in our blends to add a delicate, floral flavor. Want to try a tea where roses are the star? Try Tuscany or For Her. Both are whimsically rosy with floral notes that don't overpower the other ingredients. 

Both roses and rosehips contribute two more things that we love in a good tea blend: Aesthetics and a flavor buffer. We often want our teas to look as beautiful as they taste and smell. That's one of the major reasons we add beautiful botanical ingredients to our blends. We also like to add flowers to help tone down other powerful ingredients. A cup of just hibiscus would be brutally sour. But a cup of hibiscus and rose hips has just the right balance. 

Try these ingredients for yourself and see how they differ in taste, smell, and purpose.