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Rooibos

Wikipedia: Rooibos | Wikicha: Rooibos | Teaviews: rooibos-tea
Updated: Apr. 4, 2012

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About Rooibos | Varieties of Rooibos | Best (Top-Rated) Rooibos

About Rooibos

Red Rooibos
from Drink The Leaf

Rooibos, sometimes incorrectly called rooibos tea is a type of herbal tea made from the Aspalathus linearis plant, a legume native to South Africa. It is often called South African red tea or just red tea, owing to the red color of both the dry leaf and brewed tea. It is also called redbush tea and sometimes just bush tea, although it is distinct from honeybush, a similar tea from the same region made out of a different plant. The tea is made of both stems and leaves, and the dry leaves and stems have a fine texture.

Red and Green Rooibos
from The Tea Set

Rooibos has a distinctive flavor; it is less bitter than most tea, but is often described as being among the herbal teas that most closely resembles black tea. Like most herbal teas, it contains no caffeine.

Rooibos is traditionally allowed to oxidize, turning it red, much like how black tea is allowed to turn black. More recently, however, people have begun to manufacture green rooibos, which is produced similarly to green tea. Rooibos is frequently used in herbal tea blends, which we list under flavored rooibos. Rooibos is also frequently mixed with black, green, or other teas; such blends are listed under miscellaneous blends.

Cultivation, climate change, and poverty:

Rooibos grows only in a small region of the West Cape province of South Africa. Efforts to cultivate it outside this area have proved unsuccessful, as it is dependent on the region's unique climate, soils, and other components of the ecosystem. Rooibos production is being threatened by climate change, and many farmers of rooibos live and operate in extreme poverty, complicating measures to adapt to the changing climate.[1]

Medicinal uses & health benefits of rooibos:

Luteolin is an antioxidant
present in rooibos.

Rooibos is frequently promoted as having antioxidant activity comparable to that of tea; a study validated this for both green and red rooibos.[2] The antioxidants in rooibos have been shown in mice to protect against radiation damage, by neutralizing the free radicals formed by exposure to gamma rays.[3] In addition, rooibos is widely used in traditional medicine for respiratory ailments such as asthma. A study on rats found significant dose-dependent bronchodilatory effect, providing a sound basis for its use in treating respiratory conditions.[4] Another study on rats found that rooibos provided significant protection against liver damage, in concentrations equivalent to that typically used when humans drink rooibos tea.[5]

Topical use of rooibos in skin care products:

Topical application of rooibos (such as its use in creams, cosmetics, and sunscreen) also shows some promise of health benefits. One study found that rooibos, honeybush and green tea, all had tumor-preventing properties in mouse skin, suggesting that these teas hold promise for preventing skin cancer.[6] More recent work has uncovered likely mechanisms by which topical use of rooibos and honeybush reduce tumour promotion, inflammation, and oxidative stress.[7]

References:

1. Virginia Marsh, Rooibos tea farmers on the front line of climate change, The Independent, Dec. 18, 2009.

2. A. Von Gadow, E. Joubert, C. F. Hansmann, Comparison of the antioxidant activity of rooibos tea (Aspalathus linearis) with green, oolong and black tea
, Food Chemistry, Vol. 60, No. 1, Sep. 1997, pp. 73-77.

3. Radioprotective effects of antioxidative plant flavonoids in mice, Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis, Vol. 350, No. 1, Feb. 19, 1996, pp. 153-161.

4. Arif-ullah Khan, Anwarul Hassan Gilani, Selective bronchodilatory effect of Rooibos tea (Aspalathus linearis) and its flavonoid, chrysoeriol, European Journal of Nutrition, Vol. 45, No. 8, December, 2006.

5. O Ulicná, et. al., Hepatoprotective effect of rooibos tea (Aspalathus linearis) on CCl4-inducedliver damage in rats., Physiol Res, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2004, pp. 461-466.

6. Inhibition of tumour promotion in mouse skin by extracts of rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) and honeybush (Cyclopia intermedia), unique South African herbal teas, CancerLetters, Vol. 224, No. 2, pp. 193-202, Jun. 2005.

7. Antoinette Petrova, Modulation of ultraviolet light-induced skin carcinogenesis by extracts of rooibos and honeybush using a mouse model: elucidating possible protective mechanisms, (2009). CPUT Theses & Dissertations. Paper 91.

Varieties, Kinds, or Types of Rooibos

Green Rooibos

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Best Rooibos

The notion of the "best" Rooibos is subjective, because different people have different tastes. We present the most often-rated and highest-rated teas in this category, and allow you to draw your own conclusions.