Tagged: sustainability
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.
Somebody Fed Rooibos to Nine Hundred Tilapia
A 2025 trial at Walter Sisulu University fed fermented and green rooibos extract to 900 Mozambique tilapia for eight weeks. The green-rooibos fish got more growth out of the same feed, though the same fish showed liver changes the authors say need further work.
The Rooibos Nobody Drank Is Dyeing Sneakers in Tokyo
Global fashion and footwear brands, including ASICS and PANGAIA, dye clothing with leftover rooibos tea waste. No source says whether the Cederberg sees a cent of it.
The Same Long Steep That Is Kind to Rooibos Is Not Kind to a Mesh Tea Bag
Rooibos rewards a long steep at a full boil with no bitterness penalty. That exact combination, near-boiling water held for many minutes, is also what tea-bag research finds strips the most microplastic out of a nylon or polypropylene mesh bag.
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.
The Sustainability of Rooibos
Sustainability in rooibos is four subjects rather than one: the fynbos the crop is planted on, the wild plant that still grows unfarmed above it, the certification marks that each promise something different, and the question of who owns the land and who receives the money. This is the canonical account of all four, with the figures each of them rests on.