Ministry of Rooibos Open till four Search

Guides

The reference pages, kept current.

  1. The cup The cup Brewing Rooibos Brewing rooibos: how much leaf, what water temperature, how long to steep, how to make it as a latte, and how green rooibos differs from red.
  2. The plant Fynbos Fynbos is the fine-leaved shrubland that covers South Africa's southwestern Cape and the ground rooibos calls home. What the shrubland is made of, why fire keeps it alive, and the protection and the threats the whole system now lives under.
  3. The body The body Rooibos and Health A reference on rooibos and health, sorted by how strong the evidence is: what is settled (caffeine-free, low in tannins, antioxidant-rich), what one small human trial suggests, what is shown only in animals, and what has no clinical support at all.
  4. The trade The History of Rooibos The full history of rooibos, from a wild Cederberg shrub used by the Khoisan, through Benjamin Ginsberg's 1904 trade and Pieter Nortier's 1930 cultivation breakthrough, to the trademark fights and the protected name it carries today.
  5. The process How Rooibos Is Processed How a cut branch becomes tea, from the fermentation heap and the drying yard to grading, the food-safety step every batch clears, the weed that has to be kept out, and the separate path that ends in an extract.
  6. The trade The trade The Rooibos Trade How the red bush is priced without a public auction, where the crop actually goes, what its certification marks verify, how the name is legally protected, and how concentrated the buying side really is.
  7. The place The Sustainability of Rooibos Sustainability in rooibos is four subjects rather than one: the fynbos the crop is planted on, the wild plant that still grows unfarmed above it, the certification marks that each promise something different, and the question of who owns the land and who receives the money. This is the canonical account of all four, with the figures each of them rests on.
  8. The place The Cederberg The Cederberg is the Western Cape mountain range that researchers place at the centre of rooibos's wild range: its acid sand, winter rain and fires, and where each source draws the edge of rooibos country.
  9. The plant The plant Rooibos Rooibos is the caffeine-free infusion made from Aspalathus linearis, a needle-leaved legume grown in South Africa's Cederberg.