Rooibos: Healthy, in high demand, and in limited supply

The sun starts blazing in the Ceder­berg Moun­tains as early as 9am. For this reason, the harvesting of rooibos bushes in South Africa’s semi-arid Western Cape province begins in the early hours of the morning, shortly before sunrise. Around 150 workers then fan out across the Slab­bert family’s Khoisan Tea Farm to cut the rooibos. It is hard manual labour. 

Using sickles, the seasonal workers – many of whom come from the neigh­bouring country of Soweto – tackle the thin branches and small needle-like leaves of the diamond-shaped bush. They then pile the severed ends, which are around half a metre long, into 25-kg bundles that are wrapped in fabric for trans­port.

Harvesting, cutting, fermenting

A few hours later, the freshly harvested crop arrives at the farm. Every­thing is humming; The begin­ning of March is peak season. The green branches of “Aspalathus linearis” are fed into machines that chop the tea into short pieces using rotating blades. The workers trans­port the short-cut tea to the large yard, where it is laid out in small fermen­ta­tion heaps. 

A little later, the raw mate­rial for the glob­ally popular tea is gently moist­ened with water. To further stim­u­late fermen­ta­tion under the open sun, trac­tors drive over the fresh shrubs and leaves several times. The green mate­rial is then care­fully spread across the open area. After just one night and a few hours the following day, the devel­oping tea takes on its typical rust-red colour – nomen est omen (the name is a sign). Imme­di­ately after­wards, it goes for further processing on site. 

To achieve the quality that consumers recog­nise on Euro­pean, Japanese, or North Amer­ican shop shelves, the tea must be exten­sively screened and cleaned in the processing halls. In addi­tion, expe­ri­enced experts finely clas­sify the indi­vidual batches according to flavour and metic­u­lously sort them into sizes (Long Cut, Supe­rior, Fine Cut or Classic).

“We are really under pres­sure!” Marten Slab­bert speaks bluntly in his air-condi­tioned office during this year’s rooibos harvest. Together with his sister Maristha Schloms, he runs the Khoisan Tea Farm, which has an area of around 4,000ha. In addi­tion to 80 full-time employees, a further 40 to 60 seasonal workers work on the farm as required. Around 2,000ha are poten­tially avail­able for rooibos, but only 1,000ha are currently being culti­vated. 

In addi­tion to tea produc­tion, oranges play a major role on an inten­sively irri­gated area of 70ha, and there are plans to expand the plan­ta­tion to 150ha. An invest­ment of €12,000/ha (£10,373) is required for this. However, labour is scarce, wages are rising, energy costs are skyrock­eting, and, further­more, climate change is now taking quite a toll on rooibos. 

“I was initially very scep­tical about the warn­ings on climate change, but my expe­ri­ences over the past five years have made me change my mind,” admits Marten. “We have so many more days here with temper­a­tures above 45˚C compared to before. In addi­tion, only half the usual amount of rain­fall has fallen in recent years – we only get about 250mm/year now. Apart from a single small rain­fall, we haven’t had a single drop since August 2025.” the 41-year-old farmer states deject­edly. 

Conse­quences of climate change

The lack of rain is visibly damaging the rooibos. Anyone driving through the valleys around the pretty little town of Clan­william, framed by bizarre, archaic moun­tain forma­tions, will repeat­edly see with­ered bushes on the sandy rooibos plan­ta­tions. In fact, many spec­i­mens are currently stunted, failing to reach their usual height of around 1.5m. In good years, tea farmers harvest around half a tonne per hectare; this year, it’s often as low as 350kg. 

Marten also fears that some plants will not survive the harvest cut made half a metre above the root­stock and will die after harvest. While the lifespan of rooibos plan­ta­tions used to span 11 or 12 harvests, today it is only three or four. 

Never­the­less, despite the adver­sity, the rooibos industry and growers in the region are not panicking. Although this year’s harvest volume is unlikely to exceed 13,000t; around 10,000t below the record set in 2021, South African rooibos continues to enjoy great popu­larity and demand – both in South Africa and around the world. This is no wonder, as rooibos; which belongs to the legume family, is a truly unique spec­imen in the diverse world of tea. It is only at home here, in the sandy, stony, and dry valleys with their unique flora. It is part of the endemic plant commu­nity of this region. 

Even the Khoi and San; the region’s indige­nous peoples in this still sparsely popu­lated moun­tainous area, were aware of the bene­fits of these yellow-flow­ering, rather incon­spic­uous bushes. After all, rooibos contains no caffeine, is low in tannins, but rich in valu­able flavonoids, polyphe­nols, and minerals like sodium and potas­sium. The tea is gener­ally said to have healing prop­er­ties. 

The green variety 

During the dark days of the apartheid era, the tea produced from the twigs and tender leaves was not nearly as signif­i­cant as it is today. A major boost only occurred when the Western world redis­cov­ered the health bene­fits of this tea, with its uniquely gentle, slightly fruity-sweet note. Suddenly, the South African tea was said to have healing and even anti-ageing powers. This led to a real boom in demand, partic­u­larly in Japan. 

However, it was not the usual red, fermented variety that was sought after, but the green, barely fermented version, which fits perfectly into the Japanese green tea tradi­tion. South African growers adapted to this consumer demand; as a result, around 15% of the total crop is now no longer fermented under the scorching sun. Instead, the freshly harvested rooibos is heated at 145°C for four and a half seconds, reducing the mois­ture content to 6% and thus ending the fermen­ta­tion process. 

In line with the increased demand in South Africa and 50 other coun­tries, the area under cultivation has grown consid­er­ably over the past three decades, reaching a current total of around 60,000ha. Mean­while, some local rooibos experts, like Johan Brand from Rooibos Ltd, esti­mate a theo­ret­ical expan­sion poten­tial of 120,000ha. In his opinion, this is sustain­able and possible without major inter­ven­tions in the Cape Floral Region, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 and to which the Ceder­berg region belongs. 

Be that as it may, around 300 commer­cial farms, including major players like Khoisan Tea Farm and Rooibos Ltd; with areas of over 1,000ha, are currently involved in rooibos cultivation. Only 11 compa­nies under­take further processing and have large storage capac­i­ties, and most tea growers have cultivation and purchase contracts with them. 

In addi­tion to these agree­ments, there are around 300 other smaller farms in the commu­ni­ties of Wupperthal, Moed­ver­loor, and Heiveld. These often culti­vate smaller and more remote fields. The cultivation co-oper­a­tive in Wupperthal; a settle­ment that was founded by German mission­aries in the 19th century, has its own processing facility and follows its own approach to marketing.  

These are admirable indi­vid­uals who culti­vate their plots of rooibos on a natural plateau that can only be reached via a rocky, extremely bumpy, and breath­taking road that winds its way along the moun­tain slopes. What’s more, their produc­tion is certi­fied by the anthro­po­soph­ical Demeter farming asso­ci­a­tion – it doesn’t get more unique than that.

Tiny seeds in sandy soil

However, all South African tea growers have one thing in common: They inte­grate their tea plants into a multi-year crop rota­tion. A one-year estab­lish­ment period is usually followed by four harvest seasons, resulting in an average crop yield of two tonnes over five years. After clearing the bushes, a mix of alfalfa and rye is typi­cally grown for the first year, followed by a fallow year and another year of rye, before returning to rooibos. 

Tea farmers obtain the tiny seeds, the shells of which would only break in the wild through fire or wind abra­sion, by labo­ri­ously gath­ering them from the plants. The seedlings are grown in nurs­eries and planted in the field with a row spacing of 45cm and up to 1.5m between rows. They are planted quite deep, between 15 and 20cm.

In addi­tion to rye, there are other crop rota­tions in which sweet lupins, oats, barley, vetches, and vegeta­bles like radishes or legu­mi­nous crops are grown. With the trend towards increas­ingly low rain­fall, the quality of the soil is becoming a primary focus for rooibos producers. 

Increasing the organic matter in sandy soils – whether through composting or catch crop­ping – is one option for improving soil quality, acknowl­edges cultivation expert Johan Brand. Healthy soil is often the guar­antee for healthy tea plants, which can then vigor­ously defend them­selves against insects like para­sitic wasps, moths, boll­worms, cicadas, or wire­worms. Chem­i­cals can be used in an emer­gency, but are certainly not the most sustain­able long-term solu­tion in this ecolog­i­cally sensi­tive envi­ron­ment.

A lot can go wrong before the high-quality, controlled red tea reaches the bag, admits Donovan Small, oper­a­tions manager at the Khoisan Tea Farm. This is espe­cially true if the cultivation is certi­fied organic, as is the case for part of the land belonging to the grower from Citrusdal. Specialist knowl­edge is required to manage the risks asso­ci­ated with cultivation.

Diver­sify against risks

Farm manager Jan Hendrik at the neigh­bouring Skim­mel­berg Farm already works consis­tently in harmony with nature and with the help of natural resources in the imme­diate vicinity of a nature reserve of the same name. Compost tea is used as a liquid fertiliser, and all the land is certi­fied organic. The farm grows about 90ha of rooibos 15ha of oranges, and buchu. Buchu? Yes, a still largely unknown newcomer among caffeine-free, medi­c­inal teas. Its oil fetches impres­sive prices of almost €700/litre (£605). 

The flavour of its tea is unmis­tak­able; not as smooth as rooibos, but with a domi­nant aroma. “The cultivation of buchu is still in its infancy, with only around 30 farmers working with this tea plant and a total harvest of no more than 2,500t,” explains the 35-year-old descen­dant of Dutch settlers who arrived here in 1654. 

Jan considers growing diverse crops to be very impor­tant to manage future risks. It is there­fore ideal that rooibos and buchu can be blended together in tea bags. The roles are still clearly defined: 97% rooibos, 3% buchu. 

What both have in common, however, is the endemic magic of culti­vated plants in an ecolog­i­cally and geolog­i­cally unique region. The Khoi and San peoples have long been aware of this distinc­tive unique­ness; their imita­tors who migrated here have now also recog­nised this and know how to use it to their advan­tage.