History of Honeybush

Honeybush (cyclopia) tea is a small typical fynbos shrub that is easy to miss when it is not in flower but spectacular in spring when it is a mass of yellow flowers.

Fynbos is the natural vegetation that occurs along a narrow belt stretching for several hundred miles of mountainous coastline around the Cape, north and east of Cape Town in South Africa.

The climate is mediterranean with wet winters and balmy dry summer days. Most famous for its proteas, this small area is the richest botanical area in the world. It is host to over 8,000 species of plants, having the greatest plant diversity of temperate flora on Earth and rivalling the tropical rainforests in terms of richness of species. The Cape has 600 types of heath; the rest of the world has only 26 and Scotland a mere 4!

Honeybush was probably used by country people as an infusion. The Dutch farmers who built their homesteads in this wild region were so isolated that they learnt the local pharmacopoeia (knowledge of the curative power of local plants) from the indigenous Khoisan people. This included learning how to make a rough brewed tea from the shrubs in the area.

The Caspa Tea Company (owned by the family of today’s Dragonfly Tea proprietors) began promoting Honeybush to the American and European markets as early as 1906.

Caspa is the earliest commercial brand of Honeybush and it wasn’t until the 1980s that other companies in South Africa became interested in this unique tea.

Most Honeybush is still collected in the wild and there is now a serious problem caused by uncontrolled and unsustainable harvesting which is destroying the wild stock.

There are some experiments underway to grow Honeybush commercially but the favoured species for tea-making (Cyclopia intermedia) is proving difficult to cultivate.

Great care has to be taken when harvesting in the wild – a heavy hand will kill the bush completely and the roots do not regenerate.

At Dragonfly, as the pioneers of this wonderful tea, we only source from responsible farmers who are committed to conservation and sustainability. Harvesting is carried out under the guidelines of and monitoring by the National Botanical Institute of South Africa which exists to protect and encourage the cultivation of the rich native flora.

Cutting takes place on small mountain farms on steep south facing peaks that are often covered in clouds and where snow falls in winter. Often the crop is brought down the mountains using makeshift cables and pulley systems.

Honeybush is one of the few of the world’s food crops that are still grown in the wild, in a world of rich flora and fauna where eagles soar and leopards pace the land.