Tag: tea

The prized rooibos, indigenous to the south-western reaches of South Africa, has long been used by the Khoi and San as a refreshing drink and a medicinal herb. Today it is enjoyed around the world. Its following has grown so vast that a pair of enterprising sisters in a small rural town has set up the Rooibos Route.

A study at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology has found that rooibos tea has helped to prevent liver damage in rats that had the liver-damaging chemical tert-butyl hydroperoxide. The tea may even reverse some of the damage done to the organ, it was found.
• Rooibos takes the fight to diabetes

The Magoebaskloof community in the Tzaneen area of Limpopo province will be reaping the fruits of enterprise, when an abandoned tea tree plantation is revitalised into a project that will create over 500 new jobs in 2013.
• Imbizo boost for entrepreneurs

There is always a delightful Madam and Eve quality to my meetings with my mogadibo (darling) Melea Letsoalo. I have known her my whole life – literally from the day I was born. She was our family’s domestic worker for over 40 years, and her life and mine are so entwined we’re practically related, writes Bridget Hilton-Barber.

The look, taste and health properties of red espresso, South African-invented beverage that’s neither coffee nor tea, is causing quite a stir with lovers of both drinks.

A South African community of small-scale farmers producing organically grown rooibos tea have steamed ahead to the finals of an international challenge for social entrepreneurs.

Thinking of KwaZulu-Natal does not usually bring images of world-class tea production to mind. However, Nkandla, in the rural heartland of the province, is home to a world-renowned tea producer that counts Woolworths and the most prestigious tea merchants in Europe among its clientele.

Alan Whelan's dream of trans-African travel and his love of tea coalesced into one idea: stopping for tea with people he met along the way from Cairo to Cape Town. And keeping the used tea bags, for a project that uses this throwaway item to create gifts that are sold around the world.

After 10 years and over R6-million in legal fees, Rooibos Ltd has won the battle over ownership of the generic term "rooibos". The name of the tea, an everyday word in South Africa, was registered as a trademark by a US company in 1994.

Deep in the KwaZulu-Natal heartland is an estate producing one of the most exclusive teas in the world. And Ntingwe tea is not only creating a stir among British connoisseurs - it's also bringing employment to an underdeveloped area, and encouraging local "outgrowers" to grow tea on their own land.