My Burnt Orange Rooibos Syrup

Rooibos (red bush) syrup ingredients

Been busy, I know, but I have some exciting stuff to come and 6 drafts to finish off! I thought I would try posting in 5 minutes flat with this simple one, rooibos syrup, or red bush in English.

1 cup sugar
1 cup boiling water
juice of 1 lemon
4 rooibos teabags
Thyme, only because I have suddenly fallen for this herb, and hard too

Rooibos (red bush) tea infusing

Plop all ingredients into a saucepan and reduce to about a third (for cup measurements you will end up with just under 2/3 of a cup). Be patient, it takes a bit of time, but was not too troublesome, not very high maintenance on moderate heat.

Rooibos (red bush) syrup bubbling

Enough said. I will only add a little bit more about rooibos tea (by copy and pasting mamaafrika’s comment from my natural remedies post).

“Funny thing… the first two times I’d ever heard of Red Bush Tea (Rooibos) was from a Zulu friend who recommended it to someone for skin troubles (they bathe babies in it who have very dry skin, etc). She then listed quite a few other medicinal uses for it, of which I only remember a couple.

Then a second time, when years later, I read the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series of books which is based in Botswana and Mma Ramotswe (the books main character) was always sipping on her Red Bush Tea.

All these years later, I have a cup of it daily because I just love the flavor; but do in fact, use it medicinally on occasion as well.

Thanks for reminding us of the wisdom of our elders and the treasures our beloved continent holds for our healing!!”

Rooibos (red bush) syrup reducing

And there you have beautiful burnt orange syrup (the orange in photo above was for cosmetic purposes, but feel free to add some of the juice too). Of course I am going to share ideas on how to use it, but will save that for other posts that need more than 5 minutes. PS, this ended up taking 25 minutes, but who’s counting?

Nightie night!