Honeybush Tea Seeds - Cyclopia subternata - Indigenous - Medicinal Herb Shrub

Cyclopia subternata Seeds

Honeybush Tea

Cyclopia, better known by the common name Honeybush, or Heuningbos in Afrikaans, is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae, of the subfamily Faboideae. The description was published by Étienne Pierre Ventenat in 1808. The name Ibbetsonia, published two years later, is regarded as a synonym of this genus. The leaves of honeybush are commonly used to make herbal teas. It grows only in small areas in the southwest and southeast of South Africa and has many similarities with rooibos. Honeybush is so named because the flowers smell of honey. The taste of honeybush tea is similar to that of rooibos but a little sweeter. In some rural districts it used to be common practice to keep a kettle of honeybush tea infusing on the stove ready for drinking while scenting the whole house unlike tea prepared from Camellia sinensis, the product does not turn bitter with long-term simmering. Most of South Africas honeybush crop comes from people harvesting wild-growing honeybush especially Cyclopia intermedia (bergtee). A small, but growing number of farmers grow specific species, such as Cyclopia subternata (vleitee) and Cyclopia genistoides (kustee, also known as coastal tea) commercially. Money beetles are attracted to the sweetly scented flowers at the tip of the branches. They are responsible for most of the pollination. To make the tea the stems and leaves are chopped into small pieces, wet and then left in heaps where they ferment spontaneously. They may be heated in an oven to about 60 or 70 degrees Celsius to enhance the process. After sufficient fermentation, the tea is spread out in the sun to dry. After sifting, it is ready for use. Honeybush tea, with its own distinct sweet taste and aroma, is made like ordinary tea, except that simmering enhances the flavour. Medicinally drinking honeybush tea is said to promote good health, stimulate the appetite, and the milk flow of lactating mothers.