We’ve converted to Rooibos tea!
Posted:14 October 2010
On our recent travels around the Western Cape of South Africa with a group of GH friends and enthusiasts we visited a Rooibos tea plantation. Rooibos is a fynbos species, a scruffy little bush endemic to the Clanwilliam/Cederberg area from where it is processed, packaged and despatched worldwide.
Although in origin and cultivation completely unlike the tea we are more used to drinking, South African bush tea or red tea has so much going for it – it’s a delicious infusion packed with antioxidants and reassuringly caffeine-free.
Elandsberg Eco Tourism, run by Chris and Annette du Plessis, operates an independent Rooibos tea estate with its own processing plant. Chris talked us through the whole process of Rooibos cultivation – from propagation (we learnt that propagation from seed is certainly not an easy task!), to the processing of the plant, to the final packaging…
Aside from tea, all manner of useful products are now made using Rooibos as a key ingredient – soaps, body creams, therapeutic creams to ease muscular pain – even bread! Annette du Plessis made the tastiest Rooibos bread for our lunch – she was kind enough to email us the recipe below:
Annette’s Rooibos bread
- 875ml wholewheat flour
- 500ml bran
- 500ml oats
- 175ml sunflower seeds
- 125ml cake mix or raisins
- 2 sachets of Rooibos tea (we assume she means 2x tea bags)
- 5ml salt
- 10ml baking powder
- 500ml buttermilk
- 375ml milk
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Mix the dry ingredients, including 1x sachet of Rooibos tea, but excluding bicarb and baking powder.
Mix the latter two with buttermilk and shake up, then add to dry ingredients.
Rinse the buttermilk container with the milk and add to the mixture.
Mix well and divide into two bread-tins.
Sprinkle 2nd sachet of Rooibos tea evenly over the mixture in tins and bake for 1 hour.
Enjoy…