Tagged: history
How Rooibos Became a Health Drink
Rooibos is sold the world over as a wellness drink. That reputation began not in a laboratory but with one South African mother's claim in 1968, and the science has never quite caught up with the marketing.
How Rooibos Became a Crop, With Help From an Ant Heap
Before rooibos could be farmed, its seed had to be found and coaxed to sprout. The answer ran through a Clanwilliam doctor, a hard seed coat, and a colony of seed-hoarding ants.
Rooibos Pays the Khoi and San for Their Knowledge
Since 2019 the rooibos industry has paid the Khoi and San a share of its earnings for the knowledge that the red bush makes a drink. Here is how that came about, how the levy works, and the argument that it does not go far enough.
Four Times Someone Tried to Own the Word Rooibos
The famous fight over the word "rooibos" ran from 1993 to 2005 in a US courtroom. It was not the first attempt to own the name, and it was not the last. Here are the other three, including the one the industry's own founding family gave back on its own.
Japan Boycotted Apartheid and Bought the Rooibos Anyway
How the red bush reached what is now its largest market, straight through a contradiction the trade was built on.
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.