Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Herb guide to Rooibos along with all the Rooibos containing recipes presented on this site, with 2 recipes in total.

e This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Rooibos as a major herb flavouring.

Redbush (Rooibos in Afrikaans), Aspalathus linearis is a broom-like member of the Fabaceae (leguminous/bean) plant family that is native to South Africa. It is grown only in a small region of the Western Cape province of South Africa.

The Rooibos plant is a shrubby plant with needle-like leaves that grows to about 2m tall and 1.5m in diameter. It looks very much like European broom and, being a member of the legume family also produces yellow flowers of the same size and shape as broom.

The plant came to the attention of Europeans in 1772 when the Swedish naturalist Carl Thunberg noted that "the country people made tea" from a plant related to rooibos or redbush. Traditionally, the local people would climb the mountains and cut the fine needle-like leaves from wild rooibos plants. They then rolled the bunches of leaves into hessian bags and brought them down the steep slopes on the backs of donkeys. The leaves were then chopped with axes and bruised with hammers, before being left to dry in the sun. The Dutch settlers to the Cape developed rooibos as an alternative to black tea, an expensive commodity for the settlers who relied on supply ships from Europe

In 1904, Benjamin Ginsberg, a Russian/Jewish settler to the Cape, riding in the remote mountains, became fascinated with this wild tea. He ran a wide variety of experiments at Rondegat Farm, finally perfecting the curing of rooibos. He simulated the traditional Chinese method of making very fine Keemun, by fermenting the tea in barrels, covered in wet, hessian sacking that replicates the effects of bamboo baskets. By the 1930s the plant was being cultivated on commercial levels.

In preparation for selling as a tea, rooibos leaves are generally oxidized , a process often, inaccurately, referred to as fermentation by analogy with tea-processing terminology. This process produces the distinctive reddish-brown colour of rooibos and enhances the flavour. Unoxidized "green" rooibos is also produced, but the more demanding production process for green rooibos (similar to the method by which green tea is produced) makes it more expensive than traditional rooibos. It carries a malty and slightly grassy flavour somewhat different from its red counterpart.

In South Africa, it is common to prepare rooibos tea in the same manner as black tea and add milk and sugar to taste. Other methods include a slice of lemon and using honey instead of sugar to sweeten. As it contains no caffeine, it is common to drink rooibos tea during the evening and before bed-time.

As well as South Africa, redbush tea is commonly consumed in Namibia and Botswana. Indeed, the use of redbush tea came to notice in Britain due to the Alexander McCall Smith's #1 Ladies Detective Agency novels, featuring Mma Ramotswe of Botswana. The books were so popular that Redbush tea was launched commercially in the UK.

Just like China tea, Rooibos/Redbush tea is an herb that just happens to be made into an herbal infusion that we call tea. And just like China tea it can be used as the base for preparing a range of dishes from drinks through cakes to stews. Some of these recipes are presented here.