OUR PRODUCTION
The flavour of honeybush is wonderfully diverse. It takes on different characteristics depending on the species, provenance, harvesting, handling and processing. Bringing out the best in every batch of tea we harvest is how we achieve superior quality year after year. The Honeybush Company processes tea with reliable, experienced processors that are compliant with the food quality standards required to export. We have also partnered with highly regarded tea experts and blenders for the secondary processing and product development.
We believe our thorough process of production ensures your purchase retains all the quality it promises—the health benefits for your body, and the environmental and socio-economic impacts for communities.
Harvesting and Processing
Honeybush is harvested by hand with secateurs before transporting to the processing facility. Primary tea processing involves fresh honeybush being sorted, chopped, oxidized and dried. The dried product is then sieved and graded according to cutwidth. Oxidation is done in large tanks with carefully controlled temperature and moisture levels. It is during the oxidation process that the tea develops its distinctive sweet, fynbos, honey-like aroma.
Blending and Product Development
We make sense of the incredible complexity of flavours of honeybush tea has with our meticulous selection, separation and blending. Select batches are blended together to create distinctive taste signatures representative of terroir and celebrating vintage. Our in-house experts dedicate a lot of time and energy to sourcing and harnessing the tea into fine blends of varied taste profiles. We also blend our honeybush with other sustainably sourced ingredients such as ginger, lemongrass, marula and many others, delivering a variety of delicious flavoured tea combinations. Sharing the story of provenance and traceability with each vintage harvest is core to our sustainability and product ethos.