Tagged: honeybush
Rooibos Has Nearly 280 Cousins, and Almost None of Them Became Tea
The genus Aspalathus holds close to 280 species, nearly all found only in the Cape. Three relatives were once brewed as "stekeltee," and the historical record suggests rooibos itself is a surprisingly late arrival to the Cape teapot.
Hard Water Leaves No Scum on Rooibos, but It Does Age the Aspalathin
The standing advice is to brew with filtered water because minerals in hard water dull tea. A 2023 study that tested rooibos directly against black and green tea found the usual reason for that advice does not apply to the red bush at all, though a different, real effect on rooibos's own chemistry does.
Rooibos and Honeybush Are Not Cousins, Not Really
Both are caffeine-free, both grow only in the Cape, and both get called "the other South African tea." Past that, they are two different plants from two different tribes of the legume family, two different mountain ranges, and two different antioxidants, and the historical record on how each was actually brewed is stranger than either box on the shelf lets on.
The Calm Cup Claim, and How Far the Evidence Reaches
Rooibos removes caffeine from the evening question entirely, and a small run of animal studies on green rooibos extract has begun asking whether it does more. Here is what genuinely holds up, and what is still a finding in worms and fish, not yet in you.
Rooibos Waited Ninety Years for a Second Variety
Nearly every rooibos field alive today still runs on one man's 1930s selection. Only in the last few years has anyone seriously tried to breed a second one, and the person doing it is the same botanist who spent the 1990s taming rooibos's sister crop, honeybush.