Tagged: legume

The Soil Under Rooibos Cannot Tell It Is Farmed

Someone sequenced the soil bacteria under wild rooibos and under a farmed field nearby. No significant difference turned up, which unpicks a tidy sustainability claim.

Rooibos Is Caffeine-Free. It Was Never Decaffeinated.

Rooibos has never contained a milligram of caffeine, and that is a different claim from "decaffeinated." Here is the botany behind the difference, and what decaffeination actually leaves behind in the tea and coffee that need it.

The Red Bush Changes Its Own Soil, Then Changes It Back

Nobody fertilises a rooibos field. The plant grows in famously hungry soil by striking a daily bargain with bacteria that live in its own roots, one it renegotiates every morning and, by the record's own reading, lets lapse every night.