the GoodEater Collaborative

Author: Joshua Levin (33 Articles)

Joshua Levin is a consultant to non-profits and their corporate partners in sustainable agriculture business development and sustainable food markets. Joshua holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business, where he was a Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship, and a BA from Harvard University. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn, NY.

- posted by Joshua

All the world’s rooibos tea (or “red bush” tea) is produced in a small area – less than 200 square miles – in western South Africa.  The dry red earth is speckled with green bushes until a sudden bloom of wildflowers in August carpets the land with pastel sweeps of purple, yellow, and blue.  The flat land reaches epic mountains in the distance.  Yet when your vehicle finally climbs a range, they reveal themselves as plateaus, repeating an almost identical landscape at a higher elevation, referred to in Africaans as the “Heiveld”.

As red as the earth is the rooibos tea bush, wild-harvested for unknown millennia by the Khoi San Bushmen, who’s red-toned skin matches the surroundings.  Slaves later consumed the rooibos tea beverage after Europeans forcibly acquired the land.  In the last five years, rooibos consumption has expanded internationally, where it is prized for its sweet and refreshing flavor, lack of caffeine, and its high mineral content.

There are only two Black-owned smallholder rooibos producers in the world: The Heiveld Cooperative and The Wupperthal Cooperative.  They are owned and run by descendants of the original Khoi San Bushmen, who were otherwise largely killed.  Heiveld’s rooibos is grown in small slips among the natural vegetation, preserving biodiversity and pollinators.  Heiveld harvests, processes, and ferments the tea itself.

Heiveld sustainably and responsibly produces a high-quality product.  Yet they face many challenges.  The majority of rooibos in South Africa is produced by large White-owned estates.  These estates focus on fruit or wine production.  However, they portion some of their land for the increasingly lucrative rooibos, and their tea generally utilizes chemical fertilizers and mono-cropping techniques.  Heiveld’s product is thus superior environmentally, socially, and in visual and taste quality.

Unfortunately, the Fair Trade Labeling Organization has chosen to weaken their standards for certification.  Large estates owned by the traditional elite can now receive FT certification with about 10% worker ownership, while they produce at prices far below that of the smallholder cooperatives.  Unless retailers can effectively tell the story of the Khoi San smallholder producers and capture the premiums the Khoi San require, their business is in danger, as now Fair Trade rooibos can be acquired at lower prices from these estates.

This is why I’m telling the story.

Several brands in Europe sell rooibos from Heiveld and Wupperthal, but it is hard to find in the U.S.  Fortunately, EcoTeas (maker or Mate Revolution) recently starting selling this fantastic rooibos, both wholesale and retail.  I helped finance EcoTeas’ purchasing from Heiveld through my work with Root Capital, and I was pleased to recently find the product on the shelf at my local grocer – the Park Slope Food Co-op.

Steep rooibos a little longer than normal tea.  I highly recommend adding milk a tiny bit of sugar.  I find it to be an amazing, naturally sweet, yet caffeine free, late-night ritual.