Tagged: european union
Article · processing
Not Every Plant Cut Into a Rooibos Harvest Is Rooibos
A Cape weed common across rooibos country looks enough like the crop to be missed at harvest, and carries a compound the tea plant does not make on its own. Here is what South African chemists traced it to, and what independent testing has actually found.
Article · business-trade
Who Gets to Call It Rooibos? The Fight to Protect a Plant's Own Name
A Texan company spent four years demanding money from anyone who used the word "rooibos" to sell tea, until a US court struck its trademark down. Here is how South Africa lost the name, won it back, and built three separate legal shields so it could never happen again.