African Autumn

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Sending the rest to friends…

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!!

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.