We’ve featured a few articles on rooibos in these pages before. It’s an herbal beverage that’s not exactly a new phenomenon in our part of the world, but then again it’s far from being a household word, at least not yet.

If rooibos is not a word that’s in your vocabulary just yet, here’s a brief overview to get you acquainted. Rooibos is an herbal beverage that’s grown only in South Africa and is typically prepared and consumed in much the same way as tea. Rooibos is also known as redbush, for the reddish color of its tiny leaves, which also steep to a deep red color in the cup. The flavor of rooibos is smooth and mellow and the brew is caffeine free. Much in the same way as with tea, a wide range of health benefits have been attributed to rooibos, though many of these have yet to be confirmed.

The beverage has been getting good press on these shores for a number of years now and has gradually been building a steady following. To help this along, it recently garnered a few mentions in several high-profile media outlets. The first of these appeared last month in Slate, the popular online magazine, whose rooibos article bore the sub-title “If you haven’t heard of it, you will soon.” As the article noted, imports of rooibos have been up about 15 percent in recent years and jumped to 30 percent last year. They’re expected to continue at about the same level this year. For more about this rooibos and this potential rooibos revolution, take a look at the article here.

It’s no coincidence that just a few days later one of the blogs hosted by the popular men’s mag Esquire, featured an article on…you guessed it. It’s easy to tell that it was no coincidence, since the Slate article was actually mentioned. Article number two is not much more than a rehash of the previous one, but it marks yet another feather in the cap for rooibos. Read it here.

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