GENERAL INFORMATION
We use only Organic Rooibos and Honeybush Teas in our AFRICA'S MIRACLE! Red Tea Blends. After all, we think it would be pretty silly to drink a "healthy" beverage if the teas in the product have been grown with harmful pesticides and fertilizers.

ROOIBOS [REDBUSH] TEA (Aspalathus Linearis)
Technically speaking Rooibos is not a "tea" but rather an herbal infusion. Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) is a leguminous shrub indigenous to the Cedarberg Mountains, an area of the North Western part of the Cape Province of South Africa. The word Rooibos literally means "Red Bush". "Rooi" is the Afrikaans word for red and "bos" means bush. The name is actually a misnomer, as the bush itself is green. Rooibos is harvested by hand, and then chopped in a machine that is much like an old fashioned tobacco cutter. The chopped green leaves and stems are piled in mounds and allowed to ferment (essential in order to enhance the flavor of the tea) and then spread out in the sun to dry, in a process similar to that for black tea or oolong tea. During this entire process, oxidation occurs, which results in the tea becoming a deep rich red rust color. Once the tea is dry it is collected, heat sterilized and sifted into different grades.

The Cedarberg mountain area was once inhabited by a bushmen people know as the Khoisan. The Khoisan used many of the local plants for medicinal purposes and were the first people to introduce Rooibos to Europeans who had settled at the Cape Of Good Hope and it's surrounding areas. Over time, the tea has become known as the "Miracle Tea".

HONEYBUSH TEA (Cyclopia Intermedia)
Like Rooibos, Honeybush is not really a "tea" but rather an herbal infusion and the similarities don't end there. Like Rooibos, Honeybush is indigenous to South Africa and grows nowhere else. The harvest and fermentation processes are also similar, although Honeybush is collected from the wild and has not been grown in the same commercial manner as Rooibos.

Honeybush gets it's name from it's sweet smelling yellow flowers. Cylopia Intermedia flowers around September/October (springtime in South Africa) each year. There are 23 species of the Cyclopia plant found growing in the Mountainous areas of South Africa's Cape Province. Only three types of Cyclopia are used for commercial tea making, Cyclopia Intermedia ("bergtee" or "mountain tea"), Cyclopia subternata ("vleitee" or "field tea") and Cyclopia sessiliflora ("Heidelbergtee"). At AFRICA'S MIRACLE! we use only Organically Certified Honeybush [Cyclopia Intermedia] from the Langkloof area in our Red Tea Blends.

Hundreds of years ago the local Bushmen people used various plants and herbs for medicinal purposes and the Honeybush plant would have been one of those that they used.