Rooibos vs green tea, black tea and herbal tea

Is rooibos a real tea?

Rooibos vs green tea

Green tea is Camellia sinensis that has been heated quickly after picking to stop it oxidising, which is why it stays green. Rooibos is a different species entirely — a legume, not a camellia.

The two are often compared because both are light, pale drinks, but the resemblance is in the cup, not the plant. Green tea comes from a broad-leaved shrub that grows in many tea regions around the world. Rooibos comes from a needle-leaved fynbos shrub that grows commercially in one region on earth.

There is a third thing people sometimes mean by “green rooibos” — rooibos that has not been through the oxidation step that turns the leaf red. That is a different question from rooibos-versus-green-tea, and we have not sourced it well enough to write about it yet. See the gaps below.

Rooibos vs black tea

Black tea is Camellia sinensis that has been fully oxidised, which is what gives it its dark colour and stronger flavour. Rooibos is often described as tasting like black tea without the bitterness, and the two are the most common substitution in the cup.

But again, the plant is the difference. Black tea is a camellia, grown across many countries. Rooibos is a South African legume. The red colour of rooibos comes from an oxidation step in its own processing — the leaf is bruised and heaped until it turns reddish brown — which is a different process from black tea’s, even though both involve oxidation.

What they share is the colour and the role in a cup. What they do not share is the plant, the family, or the place it grows.

Rooibos vs herbal tea

This is the comparison that is actually fair, because “herbal tea” is not a plant — it is a category of drinks made from plants other than Camellia sinensis. Chamomile, peppermint, rooibos: all of these are infusions, not true teas.

So rooibos is a herbal tea in the sense that it is not a true tea. But it is a particular kind of herbal tea, with two things most herbal teas do not have: a single named species (Aspalathus linearis) and a single place on earth where it is farmed commercially.

Most herbal teas are blends of whatever is available. Rooibos is a specific plant from a specific region, which is why it carries a protected designation of origin in the European Union — the same legal instrument that protects Champagne. What protected origin means.

The cousin: honeybush

If rooibos has a close relative in the cup, it is honeybush — Cyclopia. Honeybush is also a Cape legume, also made into a herbal infusion, and it is the plant people most often confuse with rooibos.

The two are genuinely related, in a way rooibos and tea are not. Both belong to the pea family and both grow in the Cape fynbos. But they are different plants and different drinks: honeybush has its own species, its own flavour, and its own growing area.

It is worth knowing the difference, because the two are sometimes sold side by side and the names are easy to blur. Rooibos is Aspalathus linearis. Honeybush is Cyclopia. Different plants, same family, same kind of drink.

What we cannot tell you yet

Two things people ask about in this comparison, and where we stand on each.