About the Rooibos Shrub
Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) is a delicate shrub with bright green, needle-like leaves that is native to the Cedarberg Mountains of the Western Cape. It grows about one-half to two meters tall (1" - 5 feet), with small yellow flowers in the spring. Rooibos thrives in the hot, dry conditions of western South Africa. Rooibos belongs to the legume family and is botanically unrelated to Camellia sinensis, the plant whose leaves are used to make black, green, and oolong teas.

This fairly drought resistant plant seeks deeply for its moisture requirements with the aid of a taproot, up to a depth of two meters below the surface depending on the soil depth, with a finely branched network of roots just below the ground surface. Seeds can be planted between February and March, but greenhouse-raised seedlings have to wait until July or August to be planted outdoors. Harvest takes place once a year, between January and March. Leaves from a new plant can be harvested after just 18 months, then every year after.

Like other kinds of tea, dried rooibos is graded according to its color, aroma, flavor, and cut length. Because it comes from the best growing region in the world, nearly all the rooibos produced is considered the highest grade, or 'supergrade.' This grade is acceptable for export, and is currently sold in England, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Malaysia, China, Japan, and the United States.

A 300 Year History of the Rooibos Herb
The mountain-dwelling people of the Khoi tribe were the first to develop a method for making tea from Rooibos over 300 years ago. Though the process has become more automated, the steps remain the same: the leaves (and sometimes twigs) are picked, bruised, fermented, then dried in the sun. It is the bruising step, in which the leaves are hammered or crushed, that gives Rooibos its distinctive red color.

The botanist Carl Humberg first reported the resulting beverage in 1772. But its commercial exploitation really began in 1904 when Benjamin Ginsberg, an immigrant from Czarist Russia, realized that Rooibos had trading potential. Ginsberg's family had been in the tea business for many years, and this provided him with the expertise to market what he called 'mountain tea'

During the late 1920's, the popularity of this unique tea spread throughout the Cape. Its demand grew to the extent that Pieter le Frans Nortier, a South African medical doctor and keen amateur botanist, discovered the value of the tea as an agricultural product and encouraged the first widespread cultivation of the tea.