Local farmers in South Africa were cut out of rooibos tea cash. Now change is brewing

A worker at the Wupperthal Original Rooibos Co-operative's processing facility carries a bag of freshly harvested rooibos to the processing area. The country's rooibos tea exports have skyrocketed from barely 500 tons in 1996 to nearly 9,000 tons today — enough to fill 3.6 billion teabags. But indigenous farmers were long cut out of the revenues, until a ground-breaking agreement was forged. (Tommy Trenchard for NPR)

High atop a remote plateau in South Africa's Cederberg Mountains, half a dozen indigenous Khoisan men stride briskly along rows of thigh-high shrubs. Every few yards they pause and stoop down to harvest armfuls of wispy stems, each one covered with needle-like leaves. The crop is rooibos, a plant native to the region that has been used by generations of Khoisan both as a tea and for a range of medicinal purposes.

Today, the sweet, earthy infusion, which is rich in antioxidants and naturally caffeine-free, is a mainstay of trendy cafe menus from New York to Tokyo, its growing popularity fueled not only by its distinctive flavor but also by its supposed (but not proven) health benefits. South African exports have skyrocketed from barely 500 tons in 1996 to nearly 9,000 tons today. That's enough to fill 3.6 billion teabags. It's also increasingly being used as an ingredient in health foods and cosmetic products.