News

2026-07-18 South Africa's Rooibos Seeds Are Headed to the International Space Station The South African Rooibos Council is sending rooibos seeds to the ISS this October, the first indigenous South African species and the first African seeds ever sent to space, to see how six weeks in orbit changes how they grow. 2026-07-02 For Men's Health Month, a Case for Moving the Afternoon Cup to Rooibos The South African Rooibos Council marked Men's Health Month by pointing men toward rooibos as a caffeine-free afternoon and evening drink, with a Stellenbosch physiologist saying the timing of caffeine matters to sleep as much as the amount. 2026-07-01 The World's Best Spirit and Mixer This Year Is Rooibos, With Vodka In It A South African hard iced tea made with rooibos and vodka was named World's Best Spirit and Mixer at the 2026 World Premix Awards, beating far larger brands. 2026-06-28 After a Drought Halved the Harvest, Fair-Trade Rooibos Just Paid Its Cederberg Growers More A drought and flooding cut the 2026 harvests of the Heiveld and Wupperthal smallholder co-operatives roughly in half, and their fair-trade buyer raised the prices it pays so the growers can afford to replant. It is a direct look at what a fair-trade cup buys the people who grew the leaf. 2026-06-27 Buy This Rooibos and Half the Factory's Earnings Reach the Workers Who Grew It At Carmién Tea in the Cederberg, farm workers own half the factory, so buying its rooibos sends money back to the people who grew the leaf, and China's new duty-free access on 1 May 2026 widens that channel. 2026-06-23 The Rooibos in Your Cup Now Pays the Khoi and San Who Discovered It A levy on every kilogram of rooibos, paid to the Khoi and San for the traditional knowledge behind the tea you drink, has reached Cederberg communities, funding schools, water pumps, an organic nursery, an internet café and diesel for farmers. 2026-05-29 The Fullest Map Yet of What the Red Bush's Genes Are Doing University of the Western Cape researchers used long-read sequencing to build the most complete picture yet of which genes rooibos switches on, a step toward breeding bushes that can take a hotter, drier veld. 2026-05-08 A Spanish Lab Tests Green Rooibos on Anxious Roundworms and Fish, and the Anxiety Eases A standardized green rooibos extract reduced anxiety-like behavior in zebrafish and roundworms and helped both survive oxidative stress better, Spanish researchers report. The work is preclinical, not a human result. 2026-04-30 Cape Town Arts Festival Explores Rooibos as Symbol of Colonial Labour and Memory Cape Town's Suidoosterfees features a visual art installation and performance by Yonela Makoba using teabag paper and soil to examine rooibos as a symbol of land dispossession and erased labour. 2026-04-28 Why Cold-Water Swimmers Warm Up on Rooibos: No Caffeine to Spike the Heart The reason a caffeine-free cup earns a place in a marathon swimmer's cold-water fuel schedule, illustrated by Karen Kennedy's quadruple Robben Island crossing. 2026-04-21 A Malaga Lab Adds Rooibos to Sunscreen and Finds the Filters Last Longer University of Malaga researchers found rooibos extract raised sun protection factor by up to 50 percent and slowed the breakdown of standard UV filters. The work is laboratory-only, not yet tested on skin. 2026-03-06 How Long to Steep for the Most Out of a Cup, According to a Beirut Lab A Lebanese food-science team ran red rooibos through twelve extraction trials at different temperatures and times and found a practical sweet spot, close to the true peak, at 90 degrees Celsius for ten minutes. 2026-03-05 Rooibos Keeps Turning Up in Detective Fiction, Now on Apple TV+ The red bush has a quiet habit of appearing in crime stories, from McCall Smith and Deon Meyer to a shared cup of rooibos tea in the Apple TV+ thriller Down Cemetery Road. 2026-02-17 Ordinary Water Leaves Rooibos Unchanged, Stellenbosch Finds Stellenbosch University and ARC researchers tested rooibos infusions against water of different pH and mineral content. Ordinary water left the cup unchanged; only water at the pH and mineral extremes measurably dulled it. 2025-09-23 Fermented Rooibos Calms the Gut Like a Steroid. Unfermented Strengthens the Wall. A three-year Cape Peninsula University of Technology study on gut cells found fermented (red) rooibos eased inflammation about as well as a steroid drug, while unfermented (green) rooibos strengthened the intestinal barrier instead. 2025-03-15 A Daegu Lab Traces Rooibos's Signature Compound to Calmer Skin in an Eczema Model South Korean researchers found aspalathin, the flavonoid unique to rooibos, eased eczema-like skin inflammation in mice by blocking a specific immune signal. The work is a mouse study, not a human result. 2024-12-19 A Cape Town Review Surveys Rooibos Compounds Against Alzheimer's Damage A review in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research catalogues how rooibos compounds act on the cell-level damage seen in Alzheimer's. The work is preclinical, and it is not a reason to expect rooibos to prevent dementia. 2021-05-31 Rooibos" on an EU Pack Now Means Real Cape Rooibos, by Law A pack sold in the European Union may only carry the name "rooibos" if the leaf was grown in the Cape, after the EU entered the red bush in its register of protected designations of origin. 2005-06-24 Rooibos" Is Now a Free Word in America, Any Pack Can Say It As of June 24, 2005, "rooibos" is a generic name in the US that anyone selling the red bush can print on a label, after a Dallas firm gave up the decade-old trademark on the word.