Honeybush

Kamara, B.I. et al.. Polyphenols from honeybush tea Cyclopia intermedia), J. Agric. Food Chem., 51, 3874, 2003. 

McKay DL, Blumberg JB. 2007. A review of the bioactivity of South African herbal teas Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) and honeybush (Cyclopia intermedia). Phy-totherap Res 21 1-16. 

Rooibos and Honeybush Recent Advances in Chemistry, Biological Activity and Pharmacognosy... 

Both rooibos and honeybush speoies belong to the Fynbos biome, which accounts for more than 80% of the plant speoies in the Cape Floral Kingdom, the smallest but highest in biodiversity of the six plant kingdoms in the world. 

Antioxidant content/capacity Traditional S rooibos Green rooibos Traditionaf honeybush Green honeybush... 

The aroma volatiles of honeybush have also been reported by Wang et al (27). The aroma components were dominated by monoterpene alcohols, of which a-terpineol (28%) was the major component, with minor amounts of linalool (7%), nerol (2%) and geraniol (8%). These monoterpenes are responsible for the sweet, floral and fruity notes of the tea, while other components such as phenylethyl alcohol (3%) and 5-methylfurfural (2.1%) imparted also sweet and honey notes. Other volatiles such as eugenol (6%), linalool oxides (7%), and methyl-heptenol (3%) were also detected. With both honeybush and rooibos, the exact nature of the aromas and flavor will depend significantly on the species collected, time of collection, drying, fermentation and processing (27). 

Rooibos and honeybush also contain essential micro- and macro elements, with the traditional/fermented forms containing lower amoimts of elements than the green Vimfermented forms (28). The levels of Al and Ni in the rooibos and... 

NOTE aRf-raw/inf fermented rooibos plant material/infusion bRg-raw/inf green rooibos plant material/infusion cHf-raw/inf fermented honeybush plant material/infusion dHg-raw/inf green honeybush plant material/infusion. e 0.0 less than 0.1 All plant materials were bought in a market in Czech Republic. 

Japanese and South African researchers were the first to scientifically investigate the possible health promoting properties of rooibos which led to publications reporting on various biological activities (31-37). A few studies regarding the in vitro, in vivo and ex vivo biological activities of honeybush has been published by mainly South African researchers and are mostly limited to the exported species, Cyclopia intermedia. These studies will be discussed. 

Honeybush has traditionally been used as an expectorant, a stimulator of milk production in lactating women and to treat various digestive disorders (29,38,39) but no clinical trials have been conducted yet... 

Figure 1 Effect of fermented and green rooibos (Rf Rg) and honeybush (Hf Hg) on the hepatic redox status (reduced to oxidized glutathione ratio) of rats consuming the various herbal teas for 10 weeks. The control group consumed water (Data are from reference 50)...

When comparing the antioxidant potencies of both the traditional/fermented and green/unfermented rooibos and honeybush, evidence is difficult to select for the best one, since the activity is highly dependent on the assay used, the nature of the raw material, and type of samples (aqueous extracts, enriched-extracts or solvent extracts) used. 

The cancer modulating properties of rooibos and honeybush were subsequently reported on and these studies provided the first evidence for the in vivo modulation of tumor promotion 54,59,60). In a 7,12-... 

Figure 2 Inhibitory effect of topical application of rooibos and honeybush extracts on skin tumor development over a 20 week period in a two-stage mouse skin carcinogenesis model (Data are from reference 54)...

Figure 3 Effect of green and fermented rooibos (Rg, Rf and honeybush (Hg, Hf on the induction of GSTP foci by combined treatment of DEN and EBj (Data...

Strong conclusions can be made regarding the association between rooibos and heart disease. No published reports describing the effects of honeybush in humans have appeared in any English peer-reviewed journals to date. 

Terblanche, S. E. Report on honeybush tea. Department of Biochemistry, Urriversity of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 1982. 

Honeybush (Cyclopia spp.) is a traditional African tea native to the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The leaves and the flowers showed a eharacteristic honey scent from which the name Honeybush is derived (P). The... 

Five commercial teas from the Mpuntu Brand of African Teas (ASNAPP South Africa, Welgevallen Farm, Stellenbosch) produced in the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 were used in this study. This included Honeybush, Kinkeliba, Lemongrass, Lippia, and Rooibos. 

Four herbal teas were evaluated , Honeybush tea , Kinkehba tea , Lippia tea, and a blended tea (10 1 Honeybush Lippia). These teas belonged to the 2005 production. One liter of each sample was brewed with 14.4 g of tea (six tea bags) every horn. Each liter of tea was sweetened with 20 grams of sugar and kept warm in an eight-cup coffee server. At the end of each hom-, the imused tea was discarded and the servers were rinsed and filled with the freshly brewed tea. Each tea was poured just before the panelist rated it to ensure all the teas were served at the same temperature. 

All packaged finished herbal teas exhibited low values of moisture (<10%), while Lippia was higher at moisture contents ranging from 11 to 12% (Table I). Rooibos and Honeybush were characterized by low levels of fine particles (less than 0.3%), while all the other herbal teas contained higher values (>1%), and the Kinkeliba teas processed during 2005 and 2006 with the highest levels (8%). 

The amount of total ashes found showed that the African teas exhibited varying levels of total minerals (Table I). Honeybush and Rooibos exhibited low levels of total minerals for each of the three years (1.4-4.5 and 1.8-2.2%, respectively). Kinkeliba was characterized by intermediate values (4.6-4.8%), Lemongrass contained higher levels (6.8-8.7%), while Lippia had consistently the highest levels (12-13%) (Table I). 

Malik et al. (3) reported for both Rooibos and Honeybush slightly higher levels of potassium (0.36% and 0.52%, respectively), similar levels of calcium (0.19% and 0.21%) and iron (12 mg and 6 mg/DT). These results support the fact that the Lemograss and Lippia were rich in mineral teas. 

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