Rooibos tea - Farming and oxidation
Grown only in the Cederberg Region in the South West of South Africa, the farming process of Rooibos Tea is dependent on many environmental circumstances, only to be found in this specific location.Traditionally, rooibos was gathered from bushes growing in the wild, then chopped up and sun dried, before being prepared for drinking. Nowadays it is a cultivated plant, and fermented in analogy to black tea.
Rooibos is currently grown on approximately 300 farms in South Africa and traded in the well-known red, as well as in a green variety. Leaves and branches are harvested during the South African summer season, from January to March. Usually, cultivated plants are machine-cut, and have a very low life-expectation; they have to be replaced after several years. A better tea-quality, however, is achieved from hand cut rooibos, which contains fewer branches. Sometimes, a small amount of the long lived wild rooibos is added to the tea, thus achieving a refined flavour.
The rooibos harvest is crunched and cut, usually by means of special machines. Thus prepared, the tea is humidified before being milled out and left to dry in the sun in thick layers. Now, the so called fermenting process takes place: Enzymes and other parts of the rooibos plant, which do not mix within the intact plant, interfuse under the influence of oxygen, producing dark polyphenols and essential oils. That way, rooibos tea gains its distinct, dark red colour. In order to complete the fermentation, the tea is then thinly spread under the hot sun, being constantly turned over, in order to have it dried as fast as possible.
Finally, the fermented rooibos tea is transferred to special facilities, where it is cleaned, filtered, sterilized and packed for shipping.
As mentioned above, a “green” variety of rooibos tea also exists. This variety is produced by interrupting the fermenting process and shortly heating the non-fermented substance at a very high temperature.