Trade & Economics
The Rooibos South Africa Keeps for Itself
Rooibos exports get the coverage: a record year, a protected name in Europe, buyers in more than fifty countries. The quieter figure in the same industry document is that roughly two fifths of the crop the numbers account for never crosses a border at all.
The Farmer Who Bought Back the Farm He Worked for Wages
Jacobus Koopman used a government land-reform loan to buy the Suid Bokkeveld farm where he had worked for wages. He and thirteen neighbours turned that into Heiveld, an organic rooibos co-operative that later had to defend its independence from its own government.
Rooibos's Monopoly Ended in 1993. It Had a Private Sequel
In 2017 South Africa's competition regulator accused the private company that inherited rooibos's old state monopoly of using exclusive farmer contracts to hold the same grip the 1954 law once guaranteed by decree.
Who Gets to Call It Rooibos? The Fight for a Plant's Name
A Texan company spent four years demanding money from anyone who used the word "rooibos" to sell tea, until a US court struck its trademark down. Here is how South Africa lost the name, won it back, and built three separate legal shields so it could never happen again.
The World Wants Your Cup. Only One Valley Pours 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.
Three Different Promises on a Rooibos Label, and Why Most Tins Carry None
Organic, Fair Trade, and Rainforest Alliance are three different promises on a rooibos label, not one certification, and the industry's own count of who holds them is smaller than most drinkers would guess. Here is what each stamp verifies, and what really decides which farmers can afford to earn it.
Nobody Has Ever Auctioned a Kilogram of Rooibos
Nearly every major tea in the world passes through a public auction where buyers bid in the open. Rooibos never has. Here is how its price actually gets set, and why the gap has never been filled.