African Autumn

Tea type
Fruit Rooibos Blend
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Citrus, Cranberry, Hibiscus, Rosehips, Alcohol, Fruity, Rooibos, Tart, Wood, Metallic, Astringent, Sour, Orange, Cinnamon
Sold in
Bulk, Loose Leaf, Sachet
Caffeine
Caffeine Free
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by TeaEqualsBliss
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 45 sec 17 oz / 506 ml

From Our Community

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61 Tasting Notes View all

  • “This sort of tastes and smells like the liquid orange jello I’m drinking along side it (maybe that bit shouldn’t have been shared with the world). Although, this is noticeably more rooibos-ish than...” Read full tasting note
  • “This tea has not gotten very good ratings on Steepster so far and after trying this sample I can see why. The aroma of it reminds me of orange kool-aid or tang. Actually it was not as tart as I was...” Read full tasting note
    52
  • “I’ve actually had this tea before – many, many years ago before I even knew what red tea was. I’m not really sure what I thought of it then, but I don’t think it was all that positive. Based on...” Read full tasting note
    1
  • “One last test of this tea before disposing. I hate to trash tea, but really, this one is not for me as a hot tea. However, as an iced tea, it is not too bad. I definitely get an orangey taste as...” Read full tasting note

From Harney & Sons

The base of African Autumn, our popular herbal blend, is rooibos a legume also known as ‘red bush’ native to South Africa. Rooibos is oxidized, which changes the color to red, and when brewed, it looks similar to the red of “black” tea. Loaded with antioxidants, fans love the brightness of the rooibos accented by cranberry and citrus.

Ingredients:
Rooibos, hibiscus, cranberry flavor, orange flavor, orange peel.

About Harney & Sons View company

Since 1983 Harney & Sons has been the source for fine teas. We travel the globe to find the best teas and accept only the exceptional. We put our years of experience to work to bring you the best Single-Estate teas, and blends beyond compare.

61 Tasting Notes

1429 tasting notes

This sort of tastes and smells like the liquid orange jello I’m drinking along side it (maybe that bit shouldn’t have been shared with the world). Although, this is noticeably more rooibos-ish than jello. It’s also less sweet. (excellent observations, Crowkettle). The finish is juicy tart- maybe there’s a little bit of hibiscus in this?

Orange jello isn’t my favourite jello flavour but it’s not bad. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to try this, BoxerMama!

My cupboard holds an ungodly amount of unopened rooibos blends. Most of them are autumn themed and from Della Terra. I’m going to drink them all this weekend. You can’t overdo rooibos, can you? This Easter is going to rock.

Preparation
Boiling 6 min, 0 sec
Fjellrev

Can’t wait for the jello to solidify, or are you sick maybe?

Crowkettle

I’m grossly impatient with jello.

Fjellrev

That’s awesome. I always try to make it the night before. You kind of have to guess whether you will be in the mood for it the next day.

OMGsrsly

Ooh, I think I’m going to go make some jello. I know one of the packets I have is peach tea flavoured. :)

ashmanra

You know, you can just lick your finger and stick it in the dry powder…that’s even faster! :)

Sil

oh man ash….i used to do that all the time lol

Terri HarpLady

I haven’t had jello in…forever!

Lucy

I just made Red Velvet Cake tea jello!… it was supposed to be marshmallows but I mucked up the recipe and it turned out as jello instead. Delicious though..

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52
2816 tasting notes

This tea has not gotten very good ratings on Steepster so far and after trying this sample I can see why. The aroma of it reminds me of orange kool-aid or tang. Actually it was not as tart as I was afraid it would be due to both the cranberry and orange element. It really reminds me more of warm juice than tea.

I do not think there’s hibiscus in here but it is very tart, too tart for me. Not sure if I will finish the rest of this sample or what I will do with it, barely drinkable IMO… to be fair the other cranberry orange rooibos I’ve had also had a similar effect. I just do not think those are two things I care for very much in tea anyway.

ScottTeaMan

I was always skeptical about tryng this one.

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1
911 tasting notes

I’ve actually had this tea before – many, many years ago before I even knew what red tea was. I’m not really sure what I thought of it then, but I don’t think it was all that positive. Based on the smell, I don’t think that view is going to be changing any today. It basically smells like a lightly lemoned plank of soured, wet, moldy wood. The sourness in the smell makes my mouth water unpleasantly.

Okay, this is gross. Like, gross nasty made me gag a little when I sipped gross. The first taste is tart and unpleasant, then it shifts to woody and slightly less unpleasant and then it finishes with a sour and really freaking unpleasant.

Ever let a cat sniff toothpaste? For some reason one of my cats likes to sniff random things – toothpaste, nail polish, breath – and every time she sniffs toothpaste, she makes this really unpleasant face as she gets close to the source. She squints her eyes, flares her lips a little. Then she takes a big whiff… and promptly gags for the next few seconds.

Yeah, that’s me drinking this tea.

Maybe the sink will enjoy it more.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec
RachanaC (Rachel)-iHeartTeas

So did you like it? Naw, just kidding sounds like an AWFUL experience.

LiberTEAS

Yeah, um… Rachel… I’m going to go with NO, I don’t think she liked it. LOL

RachanaC (Rachel)-iHeartTeas

Thought I would be sarcastically funny. Did it work? :-) Just kidding.

Paul M Tracy

I’d be curious as to your cat’s reaction to the tea and whether it scores higher than the toothpaste.

Auggy

Haha – it was just delightful! Okay, maybe not! :) I didn’t think to try the kitty-sniff test. Totally going to have to do that next time! (Well, next time I have a horrid tea, not next time I have this tea. Because I will never have this tea again!)

sophistre

Urgh.

I tell you seriously — I meant it when I said in one of my notes that one rooibos I tried made me think of bile. :( Life is too short to drink disgusting tea!

Auggy

Eeeeeeeeew.

Jillian

I have it on good authority from my plants that rooibos makes excellent compost. ;D

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985 tasting notes

One last test of this tea before disposing. I hate to trash tea, but really, this one is not for me as a hot tea. However, as an iced tea, it is not too bad. I definitely get an orangey taste as well as cranberry, and the flavors are strong enough to stand up to ice very well. I am keeping it, but not rebuying……

45 oz teapot, 6 tsp in a paper filter (I hate cloudy iced tea), 7 minutes with freshly boiled water. Allowed to cool to room temp and then iced. No additions.

Preparation
Iced
ashmanra

I never tried this iced, and I must confess that after keeping it absolutely FOREVER I gave it away to someone who said they like any and all tea. I hope they liked it, and it wasn’t bad but there are too many things I like more so why keep it around and make myself drink it? :)

SimplyJenW

I feel the same way about tea…that there are so many others I like, that it makes no sense drinking tea that is ‘meh’. I do have a few that if they don’t pass when iced, they will be relocated from my tea shelves. This one just happened to pass! And I just drank all of it after my daughter’s softball game.

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47
187 tasting notes

First Harney from the loose leaf order! I threw this sample in as a kind of throwaway to meet free shipping, and to have some more caffeine-free/decaf options in my house. I wanted to cry when I steeped this up, as I picked up the sample packet upside-down, open, and dropped about 3/4 of it all over the place.

:(

:( :( :(

But I managed to salvage most of it, and it’s back in the bag. Anyway, the tea smells delicious. Like cranberry and orange, with a little woodsy flair. It also looks pretty rooibos-ish, with little bits of orange things and whatnot. I used Adagio’s tea filters for the first time, since rooibos doesn’t need to expand, and I think it was a smart choice. The last time I made rooibos in the pot it got all stuck in the filter and was incredibly annoying to clean out.

So while cleaning the rooibos off my floor, I steeped this up for myself and the boyfriend. The resulting infusion is a very beautiful red color, rich and pretty. The boyfriend thinks this looks like cough syrup. WHATEVER.

Anyway, the wet leaves and the tea itself doesn’t smell as strongly as the dry. On the first sip, I was midly pleased. I could taste cranberry and orange, and under it all, as an aftertaste, that woodsy sweet rooibos taste that I’m really growing to like. But as my cup cooled down, things took a turn for the south.

I’m tasting hibiscus. I’m not sure if it’s really hibiscus, and it’s just my head playing tricks with me, or my tastebuds revolting, but it’s got that tart hibiscus taste that’s pretty different than cranberries. And now I can’t get that thought out of my head, and all this tea makes me this of is an upscale Celestial Seasonings Zinger. A type of tea that I’m definitely not a fan of.

I think there’s a lot of subtle nuances of flavor in there that elevate it above a typical Zinger, but the forefront of the flavor is pretty much that dreaded flower. Followed by some orange notes, and finished with rooibos goodness. It’s a bit tart for me, overall… this might actually be better iced, or gasp even finished with a bit of sugar to round it out.

Is it a bad tea? Not at all! I just don’t think it’s stellar, and I couldn’t imagine ordering more once this little sample packet is done. The boyfriend says that it’s good. “Very tart. Not a favorite, not very smooth. I can’t see drinking this all the time.”

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

I’ve so done that. Several times. That’s the one thing I absolutely hate about samples.

Ricky

At least these samples are resealable, unlike Den’s tea and GM. I try saving half, but I put them on a high shelf and I end up spilling them every time when I take it down. Time to invest in some zip lock bags.

Cofftea

And forget rooibos samples. I have a hard enough time w/ Adagio’s sample tin. HUGE mess. Yet another reason for me to not like it.

Ricky

I’m tempted to try Rishi’s blueberry rooibos. I have no clue why…

takgoti

It makes me sad when I spill tea, too. Thank the FSM you managed to salvage most of it.

denisend

Hibiscus? Granted, I’m not as sensitive to it as you are, but I don’t think I’ve ever tasted hibiscus in this tea (and this is the one that taught me that rooibos doesn’t have to be bad). I do drink it with sweetener, though.

teaplz

denisend, I’m pretty sure it was there… of course, I could be wrong! I’m not a big fan of super-fruity teas in general since hibiscus always seems to play a part.

Doulton

I can relate to your review. Some teas that seem like they will be wonderful are marred by too much hibiscus and/or rosehip. Those flavorings must be like the Jove and Zeus of the tea world: they take away all the power of other scents and tastes and become KING of it all. Too bad because I tend to really like Harney & Sons.

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67
171 tasting notes

Hmmm. . . I enjoy rooibos tea. This one doesn’t seem like anything really special. I’ll drink it, but not that often.
No flavour stands out, it pretty much tastes like rooibos. The smell is like cheap orange drink crystals.
My daughter liked it a lot.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec

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50
161 tasting notes

I expected more. I’m mostly tasting the Rooibos with a little aftertaste of orange and cranberry. All of the other flavors take a backseat to the Rooibos. I’m a little let down. I drank half of my cup piping hot and the other half cold, due to my lack of interest. The hotter the tea, the more I tasted pure Rooibos. I got a lot of the sour wood taste and smell. When the cup had completely cooled, I began to taste the orange and cranberry a smidge more.
It’s an ok tea. It’s “Ehh”…with a little head nod to the side.

takgoti

Aww, it got head tilted!

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71
6768 tasting notes

Sending the rest to friends…

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72
87 tasting notes

Tried this while at a friend’s house on a REALLY foggy day. We were originally going to go explore some caves in a provincial park near her place, but the fog was too thick to safely drive the 15 minutes to get there. So we made each other a cup of our favourite tea (I made her some milk oolong and she made me this)

WOW! I’m actually surprised I liked it so much! Not usually into cranberry, but something about the nuttiness of the red rooibos combined with the tart cranberry and sweet orange really worked for me. I sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on top and let it sit while it cooled, and it made me feel like it was Christmas all over again, especially with outside being so white (only with fog and not snow).

she didn’t like my oolong though and dumped it down the sink. It was tragic! I would’ve totally drank it for her!!

Kittenna

Oh no! Milk oolong down the sink?! :(

Plunkybug

Milk Oolong seems to be a love it or hate it tea, I’m finding. What caves were you going to go to?

Bear With Me

Horne Lake caves. I was staying up in Bowser. Love it up that way, hoping to move to the Comox Valley sooner than later, it feels so much more like home up that way.

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34
564 tasting notes

Oh, boy. This smells tart. I’m starting to be wary of anything that brews up this kind of red, probably because of all the hibiscus things I’ve hated over the last month or so.

This is extremely tart. The cranberry mostly takes over, although the orange and rooibos are there at the end of the sip. I wish the cranberry was toned way down, because the orange/rooibos mix is really nice! Yet another one that’s not for me, I think.

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