OnTap Magazine

It’s a region that is so rich in unique plant life it deserves its own monarch here’s an eclectic bunch of people sitting around the table. An Australian travel agent looking for new activities for her Cape-bound clients. A yoga- teaching health guru keen to learn about the medicinal benefits of local flora and fauna. And a bunch of brewers wondering which fynbos plants might work best in their beers. The floristic diversity of the Cape is phenomenal, yet most of us don’t really know – or at least think – about it. The variety of our plant life is so spectacular that the Cape is home to one of just six floral kingdoms on the planet. What is a floral kingdom, you might ask? Well I’ll tell you: it’s a region that is so rich in unique plant life it deserves its own monarch (ours must be the King Protea, I imagine). The Cape Floral Kingdom is the smallest of the six and the only one contained entirely within one country. Even if you have little interest in plants, that’s kind of cool. Even cooler is the fact that 70% of the plants within the Cape Floral Kingdom are not found anywhere else in the world. And of more interest to you, I suspect, is that a good portion of those can actually be used in beer. South African brewers are constantly trying to create a beer that is truly ‘ours’ and utilising fynbos might just be the way to do that. But first of course, you need to taste it. FALLING FOR FYNBOS Not every plant in the kingdom is classed as fynbos, but around 6000 of the 9000 species are, and a very, very tiny portion of those are available for tasting at the Cape Fynbos Experience. Launched in 2018, the 90-minute session sees you sampling a range of teas, infusions, cordials and of course, nibbling on the plants themselves. Held at the Cape Town Heritage Trust in Company’s Garden, the experience is led by Giselle Courtney, with many of the plants used coming from her family farm near Wellington. Giselle is one of those people that it’s impossible to be grumpy around. Brimming over with passion and with a smile that puts all around her at ease, she could quickly make even the most apathetic person fall in love with fynbos. After kicking off with a couple of familiar teas – rooibos and honeybush – the tasting moves on to the infusions. The buchu version is slightly skunky on the nose but minty on the aftertaste, while rhino bush is herbaceous enough to remind me of sage stuffing. The most memorable of all is cancer bush, though not necessarily for the right reasons. Imagine the bitterness of a quadruple IPA without any of the malt backbone and you wouldn’t come close to the IBUs of this medicinal plant. And when something tastes that bad, you know it has T ontapmag.co.za | Spring 2019 | 37