The origins of Rooibos tea

In 1900 Benjamin Ginsberg arrived in Cape Town. The young adventurer quickly set himself up as a trader, supplying remote farms in the distant Cedarberg mountain ranges of the North West Cape. It was a spectacular landscape where leopards roamed and eagles soared. Roads did not exist; farm supplies from fencing wire to candles and tobacco were hauled across the difficult terrain by ox cart and horse wagon.

While riding his horse he came across the occasional lone shepherd making a rough brew from a dried local plant. Always curious, he stopped to try the concoction and was impressed by its extraordinary taste – tea-like yet not bitter or drying to the mouth.

His inbred tea knowledge came to the fore. He was convinced that by using traditional Chinese hand-curing methods he could make this bush drink into a very palatable tea. Today this tea is known around the world by the name Benjamin chose for it – Rooibos or Rooibosch.

He experimented with sweating and fermenting the tea in barrels covered in damp sacking, a similar process to techniques still used today in remote parts of rural China.

By the late 1920s the growing demand led to problems with supply of the wild plants. Benjamin decided to find a way to cultivate the plants and enlisted the help of his friend Frans Nortier, a local GP and keen amateur botanist. Using new germination techniques they soon had the first cultivated tea under production.

Benjamin’s son, the dynamic Charles Ginsberg, army major and famous rugby player began laying out the first dedicated rooibos tea farms. He took control of the business after his father’s death in 1944 and by that time was already supplying half the demand from his new farms. He persuaded hundreds of other farmers to plant rooibos, guaranteeing good prices and supplying them with seed. He introduced sophisticated machinery to cut the long needle-like leaves and built large “courts” in which to dry and cure the tea under the hot African sun.

His extensive marketing campaign ensured that rooibos became the national drink of the country, sold in every shop in every town across South Africa.