Organic Red Raspberry Rooibos

Description

Organic loose leaf Rooibos (red tea) from the Cederberg Mountains in South Africa. Accentuated by tart flavors of red raspberry and hibiscus. Naturally caffeine free.

Rooibos: Health Benefits

Find out how rooibos can improve your health here.

Hibiscus and Your Health

Hibiscus is a genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It is quite large, containing several hundred species that are native to warm-temperate, subtropical and tropical regions throughout the world. Member species are often noted for their showy flowers and are commonly known simply as hibiscus, or less widely known as rosemallow. The genus includes both annual and perennial herbaceous plants, as well as woody shrubs and small trees. The generic name is derived from the Greek word ἱβίσκος (hibískos), which was the name Pedanius Dioscorides (ca. 40–90) gave to Althaea officinalis.

Hibiscus tea is a natural source of vitamin C. It delivers a variety of beneficial organic acids, which include tartaric, citric and maleic acids. It also has the active flavonoids cyanidin and delphinidin, which gives the tea its red color. Every 100 g of hibiscus contains approximately 49 calories — 0.1 g of fat, 12.3 g of carbohydrates, 14 mg of vitamin C, 57 mg of iron and 1.7 mg of calcium. It is also rich in beta-carotene, about 300 mg per cup and 57 mg of iron.

Red Raspberry Leaf: Not Just for Expecting Mothers

While desired by expecting mothers for it’s health benefits, red raspberry leaf is also beneficial as an everyday tea. Red raspberry leaf is full of essential minerals and vitamins like magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, vitamin C, E, A and B complex. It also contains easily assimilated calcium and iron

Rooibos History

Through the 17th and 18th centuries, European travellers and botanists visiting the Cederberg region in South Africa commented on the profusion of “good plants” for curative purposes. In 1772, Swedish naturalist Carl Thunberg noted that “the country people made tea” from a plant related to rooibos or redbush.

Traditionally, the local people would climb the mountains and cut the fine needle-like leaves from wild rooibos plants. They then rolled the bunches of leaves into hessian bags and brought them down the steep slopes on the backs of donkeys. The leaves were then chopped with axes and bruised with hammers, before being left to dry in the sun.

The Dutch settlers to the Cape developed rooibos as an alternative to black tea, an expensive commodity for the settlers who relied on supply ships from Europe.

In 1904, Benjamin Ginsberg, a Russian/Jewish settler to the Cape, riding in the remote mountains, became fascinated with this wild tea. He ran a wide variety of experiments at Rondegat Farm, finally perfecting the curing of rooibos. He simulated the traditional Chinese method of making very fine Keemun, by fermenting the tea in barrels, covered in wet, hessian sacking that replicates the effects of bamboo baskets.

In the 1930s, Ginsberg persuaded local doctor and Rhodes scholar Dr. Le Fras Nortier to experiment with cultivation of the plant. Le Fras Nortier cultivated the first plants at Clanwilliam on the Klein Kliphuis farm. The tiny seeds were difficult to obtain, as they dispersed as soon as the pods cracked, and would not germinate without scarifying. Le Fras Nortier paid the local “volk”, some of whom were his patients, to collect seeds. An aged Khoi woman came again and again, receiving a shilling for each matchbox filled with seed. She had found an unusual seed source: having chanced upon ants dragging seed, she followed them back to their nest and, on breaking it open, found a granary. The attempts by Dr. le Fras Nortier were ultimately successful, which led Ginsberg to encourage local farmers to cultivate the plant in the hope that it would become a profitable venture. Klein Kliphuis became a tea farm, and within ten years the price of seeds soared to an astounding £80 a pound, the most expensive vegetable seed in the world. Today the seed is gathered by special sifting processes, and Klein Kliphuis is now a guest farm.

Since then, rooibos has grown in popularity in South Africa, and has also gained considerable momentum in the worldwide market.