Tagged: japan

The World Wants Your Cup. There Is Still Only One Valley That Can Pour It.

Rooibos exports passed 10,000 tonnes for the first time in 2025, reaching more than 50 countries, even as the harvest behind it shrank. Here is what that means for the cup in your own hands, and why the Ministry is not worried.

The Biggest Rooibos Market on Earth Never Grew a Single Bush

For nearly sixty years the country that bought and resold more rooibos than any other on earth was Germany, which cannot grow a stem of it. How a health-food house sold the tea under a Kilimanjaro logo, how Hamburg became the trade's logistics hub, and why Japan finally took the crown.

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.