Red Rooibos Tea

Rooibos, from the Afrikaans for red bush, is the oxidized, needle-like leaf of Aspalathus linearis, a fynbos shrub that grows in South Africa's Cederberg. It tastes sweet, nutty and woody with no tannic bite. Steeped in a teapot at 100°C for five to seven minutes.

Origin & Story

Rooibos is harvested in the southern summer, roughly January to March, when the thin, needle-like branches of Aspalathus linearis are cut by hand or machine on the dry, sandy slopes of the Cederberg, about 200 km north of Cape Town. The shrub is a legume that belongs to the fynbos, the Cape's famously rich scrubland, and it is native to the Cederberg and the country around it.

The wild plant was gathered by local people long before anyone sold it. The Swedish botanist Carl Thunberg noted in 1772 how the leaves were harvested and processed, and the old claim that the Khoi and San drank it for centuries has no earlier written record to back it. Commercial rooibos begins with Benjamin Ginsberg, a Russian immigrant who worked out the curing process in 1904 and sold it as mountain tea. In the 1930s a Clanwilliam doctor, Pieter le Fras Nortier, working with local farmers, learned how to germinate the stubborn seed, which made farming it possible. Demand rose when the Second World War cut off imported tea and fell back when imported tea returned.

Today the name is protected. South Africa reserved rooibos and red bush for Aspalathus linearis products in 2013, and in 2021 the European Union granted rooibos protected designation of origin, which ties the name to the Cederberg region.

In the cup, red rooibos is the oxidized kind. The leaf is bruised and left to oxidize, a step the trade calls fermenting, and that turns it from green to red-brown and builds the flavor. It tastes sweet, nutty and woody, with honey in the finish, and it has very little tannin. That is why, unlike black tea, it does not turn bitter if you forget it, and why it takes milk, honey or a slice of lemon without fuss.

Steep 3 g of rooibos in 240 ml of water at 100°C for five to seven minutes, and taste it plain before adding anything.

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