There is no single Australian stage: each city has its own, worked out from its own cafes with the same rules. This is the stage most of the cities share (Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth); every city's own stage is in City by city.
Emerging: Fewer than 5 Sydney cafes have it, or the first cafe post or review we have is under 120 days old, or creators are posting it before any cafe has it. It also covers anything on a small share of cafes that is holding steady.
Dried hibiscus flowers brewed into a deep red tea, served iced or topped up with lemonade or soda: tart, a little like cranberry.
Biggest in Gold Coast, on 2.3% of its cafes in the last 90 days. Search changes are Aug to Oct 2026 against Aug to Oct 2025.
Each card counts the city's cafes with a post, a customer review or a current menu naming it in the last 90 days. Its share is of that city's own cafes, so a smaller city can be ahead.
We don't read Canberra, Adelaide and Perth cafes' own posts yet, so their figures come from Google reviews and menus only.
“Where to get one” lists a different set: cafes with it on a current menu or in a cafe's or creator's post, whenever it was. That is why a city's count there is not the same.
Dried hibiscus flowers brewed into a deep red tea, served iced or topped up with lemonade or soda: tart, a little like cranberry.
Drawn as a hibiscus iced tea, the drink cafes most often put it in.
Illustrative: a typical build, not one cafe's recipe.
Where to get one121 cafes in 7 cities: 112 on their menus, 9 from posts. Prices are from the menus and may have changed.
Showing 10 of 121 cafes, cheapest first
Australian cafes with Hibiscus on their menus or in their posts.
The flavours on cafe menus that list hibiscus across Australia, most cafes first, with the menu line most of them use. A chain counts as one cafe however many shops it has.
Searches say yes: up 27% on a year earlier. (Aug to Oct 2026 vs Aug to Oct 2025)
Australia searches a month
Earliest cafe post or review in our data, in any city.
Searches up by half on Nov 2024.
Share of each city's own cafes with it, last 90 days. Tap a city to see its page.
Of every search for it across Australia, Aug to Oct 2026, the part from each city.
Searches in Oct 2026. Each circle's area matches its number.
7cities where we've seen it
By Nov 2026 (so far)
Each bar is how many cities had a cafe post or review of it that month; Nov 2026 is not over yet, so its bar is so far.
Each city appears in the month of its earliest post or review in our data and grows as more of its suburbs have it. Its size is its cafes so far, never added to another city's.
Data updated 13 Nov 2026.
“Hibiscus is on 121 cafe menus across 7 Australian cities, and furthest ahead in Gold Coast (2.3% of its cafes), while searches across Australia rose 27% (Aug to Oct 2026 against Aug to Oct 2025).”
Dried hibiscus flowers brewed into a deep red tea, served iced or topped up with lemonade or soda: tart, a little like cranberry. The Froth has seen it at cafes in 7 Australian cities (Gold Coast, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth) as of 13 Nov 2026.
It is on 121 cafe menus across 7 cities right now, including FlorisTea - Flower Market and Tea House in Liverpool, Sydney, PureBred Coffee Bar in North Lakes, Brisbane, Crest Café in Wantirna, Melbourne and Pickle in the Middle in Unley, Adelaide. The "Where to get one" list on this page has every menu, city by city, with the price where the menu gives one and directions. Menus change, so check with the cafe before you go.
The average is $7.99, from 23 cafe menus in 3 cities as of 14 Nov 2026. Most charge between $5.70 and $9.90; the lowest we have seen is $5 and the highest $16.90. Each city's own average is on its page.
Of the cities The Froth reads, Gold Coast has it on the biggest share of cafes: 2.3% of Gold Coast cafes in the last 90 days, against 1.2% in Canberra and 1% in Sydney. Each city's share is of its own cafes, so a smaller city can be ahead.
Searches for it across Australia were up 27% in Aug to Oct 2026 against Aug to Oct 2025. There is no single Australian stage: each city has its own, from its own cafes. The Froth rates it Fading in Gold Coast and Canberra; Rising in Sydney and Melbourne; Emerging in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth as of 13 Nov 2026.
There were 280 searches for hibiscus across Australia in Oct 2026, with all its names added up. Across the months we have, from Jul 2024 to Oct 2026, it ranged from 110 (Jul 2024) to 550 (Mar 2025). These are monthly estimates of search demand across every state and territory.
The earliest cafe post or customer review about hibiscus that The Froth has, in any city we read, is from 13 Dec 2024. We only see what we collect, so that is when we first saw it, not when it started: it may have been sold earlier, here or elsewhere.
A typical hibiscus iced tea, drawn from cafes' own posts, is built from the top down with straw (paper or reusable), mint (a few leaves), citrus wheel (lime or orange on the rim), ice (a full cup of it) and hibiscus tea (dried hibiscus flowers steeped, sweetened and chilled, about 300 ml). Each cafe makes its own version, so this is a typical build, not one cafe's recipe.
Every city is counted on its own, with the same rules: a cafe counts for hibiscus from the first public post or customer review we found about it, and while it is on the cafe's current menu. A city's share is of its own cafes we see well (an Instagram post or a current menu in the same 90 days, a chain counting once), and its change compares the same cafes in the last 90 days with the 90 before. Cities' cafe figures are never added together, because we read some cities' posts and others only from reviews and menus. Searches are monthly search demand across Australia with all of a trend's names added up. The full method is on our "How we track cafe trends" page.