Red Tea Kettle

The drink we call tea is a mixture of herbs or tea leaves steeped in hot water. While our everyday black tea leaves have only come to the West approximately 400 years ago, people of all nations have been brewing hot beverages with plants that have health or medicinal properties for thousands of years.

Just as the first era of global discovery brought oolong and Darjeeling teas to the tables of England, our rapidly globalizing world is discovering all kinds of regional teas and tisanes with delightful flavors and useful health benefits.

Red tea, or rooibos, a plant indigenous to South Africa is just one example. Continue further to learn about the red tea kettle…

After learning about this miraculous herb, you will want to get a red tea kettle to make your own right away.

Red tea grows on the hillsides of the South African cape. Native tribes would originally collect the needle-like leaves and crush them and dry them before making their tea. Indigenous red tea kettles were either made out of clay or hide.

The hide would be filled with water and tea leaves and then placed in a pit that had hot coals at the bottom. Sand would fill in the spaces around the hide, insulating it and keeping it upright.

This method takes longer than using a red tea kettle on your stovetop, but it still worked for stone-age tribes.

When the Dutch settlers, and later the English, arrived on the Cape, they too began to use red tea kettles. Because red tea tastes similar to black tea but is caffeine free, it became a popular and cheaper alternative than shipping tea from India or China.

Some Dutch settlers used traditional cast iron tea kettles, but by 1900 an enterprising settler created a new type of red tea kettle that simulated the Chinese techniques of making a fruity tea called Keemun.

This red tea kettle allowed the tea to ferment in barrels covered with wet sacking.

Red tea is great for consuming both cold and hot. A red tea kettle for cold tea is actually a clean glass or plastic container that allows the sun to do with steeping over the course of a day.

Many people love to drink red tea because it can help relieve insomnia and irritability.

It also is a great alternative for tea lovers who are prone to kidney stones. Red tea can also soothe the symptoms of allergies.