SOUTH AFRICA – On a sun-parched plateau, high in South Africa’s rugged Cederberg mountains, Boltwin Tamboer harvests rooibos tea in much the same way his forefathers would have done. Watched over by a cave adorned with 6,000-year-old depictions of elephants and winged medicine men, he slices through a fistful of the hardy shrub with a deft flick of his sickle before stashing the metre-long (3.3 foot) stems between his legs. Working in 40-degree heat, he’ll harvest between 300-600 kg (661-1,323 lbs) of wet tea every day for the next two months. Some of this crop will be used as traditional tea. And, thanks to the growth of a newly imagined beverage, some will end up, curiously, in espresso machines.

Tamboer’s San (also known as Bushmen) ancestors were the first to discover the healing properties of the yellow-flowered shrub, which grows only in the Cederberg in the Western Cape, 250 km (155 miles) from Cape Town. The Europeans who arrived in the hostile, drought-prone region in the 18th century cultivated rooibos, or Aspalathus linearis, and brought its red tea to a broader market. Rooibos tea is a South African staple. Every kitchen in the country boasts a box of the soothing brew that’s often given to colicky babies and drunk – with loads of milk and sugar – at church gatherings and PTA meetings.

But rooibos has never been considered an exciting or trendy beverage. Husband and wife team Pete and Monique Ethelston decided to change that while on a life-altering trip. After learning that the humble tea was capable of more depth and flavour and could even be used as a coffee substitute, or a kind of red “espresso”, they began a business that would change the way people saw and experienced rooibos.

Pete and Monique got married “fairly late in life”, they say. Both had established successful careers – Pete as a consultant working for companies like Coca-Cola, and Monique as a brand manager at Unilever and local distilling behemoth Distell. Things veered from the script when Pete convinced his bride to join him on an extended honeymoon to Nepal and Tibet. Awed by their surroundings, they found themselves grappling with some big life questions. “In our corporate lives, we had this nagging feeling that we weren’t doing people or the planet much good,” says Pete.

This existential crisis was answered in a Kathmandu internet cafe when Pete received an email from a long-time friend and business partner (they still own a tree nursery together), Carl Pretorius. The email told how Pretorius, jittery after his sixth coffee of the morning but still keen for more, tore apart a rooibos tea bag and put the leaves through his home espresso machine – and ended up with a tasty coffee alternative. (Aljazeera)