Although it has only been grown as a commercial crop since the 1930s, rooibos roots go much deeper. The plant has been dried and turned into infusions since the San people, earliest inhabitants of the area, have been calling the Cederberg Mountains home. It’s here, in this region known for long hot days, chilly nights and lack of rain, that the hardy native plant grows.
The only place where the fine-leaved, bushy plant grows naturally, the Cederberg is an arid and starkly beautiful region in the west of the country, a three-hour drive from Cape Town.
Ochre-colored rock formations jut out from the barren landscape and millennia-old rock paintings etched by San hunter gatherers adorn the walls of the sandstone caves they once called home. And it is here – and only here – that Aspalathus linearis, better known as rooibos, is grown and harvested.
Rooibos – Afrikaans for “red bush” – is an endemic plant, found in just a tiny swatch of the country deep within the Cederberg Mountains and in patchy pockets down towards the Atlantic coast. The center of the industry, the “Rooibos Capital,” if you will, is the unassuming town of Clanwilliam, population 8,000. It is in this slow-paced, provincial town that Sanet Stander and her sister Marietjie spotted a gap in the market and opened the Rooibos Teahouse. As well as selling teas from 10 rooibos companies around the area, the teahouse offers a rare opportunity to take part in a tutored tea tasting.
“When we moved to Clanwilliam we noticed that although this was the center of the rooibos region, no one was really doing anything to promote the tea and make it accessible to visitors,” Sanet said over a cup of flavored organic tea whose orange peel and spice filled the room with the smells of Christmas. “We wanted people to have a reason to come to Clanwilliam and so we developed the tea house.” There are now more than 100 different teas on the menu. Some visitors buy a pot to enjoy in the garden, some buy a box or two to take home. We decided to sit down with Sanet to learn a little more about what goes into each teabag.
The tutored tasting allows you to sample a half-dozen different teas — or more correctly, infusions — as rooibos is not officially a tea at all. While your selections are brewing, Sanet talks you through the production process. Through photographs and props, she explained how the naturally occurring plant has been adapted for small-scale agriculture, how the crop is still harvested by hand, and how the needle-like plants are transformed into an ultra-healthy infusion revered worldwide for its antioxidant properties.
Sanet is passionate about rooibos, but there’s no substitute for seeing the process in action, so we headed to the African Dawn Estate, 20 kilometers west of Clanwilliam. Here rooibos is grown, harvested, bruised, fermented, and packaged all on site — a rarity since many rooibos farmers send their tea elsewhere to be processed. We climbed up into the 4×4 jeep with guide Chris du Plessis for the country’s only rooibos safari.
Tours start with the plant itself, an unassuming shrub, perhaps most notable for its color. Contrary to what you might expect, the needle-like leaves are green, and while the branches have a red tinge to them, rooibos plants do not live up to their name. The crimson colored stem does have an important role though — signalling the plant’s readiness for reaping. Once the red color reaches the tips of the stems, it is time to harvest, something that happens in the height of the Cederberg summer (January to March).
Photo: http://www.africanrooibostea.com/article/african-rooibos-tea-information/
Rooibos plants are harvested by hand, using scythes similar to those that have been used here for centuries. In fact, the entire process stays true to its roots, although machines are now used to chop and bruise the tea, rather than axes and hammers as was once the case. Once bruised, the rooibos is fermented — an oxidation process that sees the tea dampened with water and laid out in the sun to dry, making for a photogenic stop on the tour.
The rooibos safari gives a great insight as to how this unlikely shrub ends up in your mug, but to get a true feel for rooibos, you need to head to the mountains. Deep within the Cederberg lies Wupperthal, a Moravian mission station home to around 500 people. The pace of life here is slow. Summers are long and oven-like, and winter nights can be freezing.
Even when the weather permits activity, there’s not a great deal to do. Unemployment is high, and save for a centuries-old shoe factory, a locally-run cosmetics company and some small-scale grass-roots tourism, jobs are pretty much all provided by Wupperthal’s rooibos company.
Close to 90 farmers grow and harvest rooibos in the area, and the entire local crop is produced organically. Wupperthal’s tea is Fairtrade certified, something that Barend Salomo, managing director of Wupperthal Original Rooibos says saved the local industry.
“The rooibos industry has changed the local economy a lot and it’s thanks to our Fairtrade certification,” he says, beaming. “Because of Fairtrade, it makes sense for us to farm rooibos, otherwise it would just be for the love of the product. We would not be able to profit from it.”
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Rooibos is more than just the pillar of Wupperthal’s economy though. It is a source of local pride and an important part of the community’s history and culture. “When the missionaries came, there were seven Khoisan families living here using rooibos for medicinal purposes,” Barend said. “Rooibos runs in our veins, and we are very proud to share our heritage with the rest of the world. It’s a rope that connects us to our past and leads us to a proud future.”
Wupperthal counts a tiny tea room among its whitewashed houses, but while Lekkerbekkie offers a pot of rooibos tea to the hardy travellers who venture along the rutted dirt track that leads to Wupperthal, there is no one here who can offer an in-depth tasting. For that, you have to visit Clanwilliam.
Our tasting with Sanet was drawing to a close as I sniffed and sipped rooibos blended with lemongrass, rooibos flavored like blackcurrant, rooibos with chai spices, and the increasingly popular red cappuccino — a caffeine-free alternative to the usual frothy coffee. The tea has far surpassed its humble roots, gaining a loyal fan club along the way.
Revered for its health-promoting properties, rooibos is found in specialist Los Angeles tea houses.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones served rooibos ice cream at their wedding. Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon never goes onstage without a cup. Oprah Winfrey used it in a special tea blend designed for Starbucks. Canadian rock band The Stills wrote a song inspired by rooibos.
