medialifemagazine.com
Unraveling the mystery of red bush tea
By Heidi Dawley
May 27, 2008 - 1:10:07 AM
For Sherlock Holmes, it was not just any pipe but a calabash, as any detective-fictionado knows well, and it was a critical prop in his deductive reasoning. For the characters of Dick Francis stories, set around English race tracks, there's typically some disability, a crushed hand, for example, to explain why our man--it's always a man--has given up galloping race horses for a new line of work.
Mma Precious Ramotswe sips red bush tea. Red bush tea, called Rooibos in her native Botswana, is good for you, and certainly better for Precious than Holmes' other passion, cocaine, was for him. It has plenty of antioxidants, much like green tea, but no caffeine.
Mma Ramotswe, a contemplative sort, often solves her mysteries over a nice cup of red bush. “This is a tea for people who really appreciate tea. Ordinary tea is for anyone,” she says. Ramotswe, Botswana’s first female private detective, considers the teapot she uses for brewing red bush a key asset of her detective agency which is in Gabarone, the capital of Botswana. It's her prop.
On the surface the books revolve around the cases that Mma Ramotswe takes on yet, as with so many detective stories, they're really about human nature and the daily lives of the characters. The stories share the old world charm of traditional detective series such as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries.
Mma Ramotswe is hugely popular in the UK, as the chief crime-solver in “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” book series, written by Alexander McCall Smith. They're huge sellers, some 6 million copies in Britain, but she's increasingly popular in the U.S., where 7 million have been sold.
More and more, so's red bush tea. Grown in South Africa, where it's long been popular, it's increasingly finding favor among tea drinkers in the Britain and the U.S. Some of that is from the rising interest in healthy drinks, but a lot has to do with Mma Ramotswe.
“The association has improved our sales,” says Marie Heyes, marketing manager at the Britain's Red Bush Tea Co. Alexander McCall Smith has endorsed it, and it has been supported by a number of promotional tie-ins with the books--the ninth, “The Miracle at Speedy Motors,” was released last month--and a made-for TV movie.
The tea is a traditional drink in Africa, particularly South Africa, where it is usually served warm, with milk and sugar. In other parts of Africa it is usually drunk without milk, and possibly with a dash of honey.
In Britain, Heyes says supermarkets tell her it now accounts for up to 2 percent of the overall tea category and that sales are growing about 55 percent a year.
In the U.S., sales have grown from just about nothing in 1997 to more than 500 tons a year, according to Hugh Lamond, president of California-based Herbal Teas International. “It is a very small percentage of the specialty market, but it is growing rapidly in popularity,” he says. “Now everyone is jumping on the red tea bandwagon.”
***
Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, the highly anticipated “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” didn’t disappoint at the box office, bringing in $126.0 million over the holiday weekend. Last week’s No. 1, “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” fell to No. 2 with $28.6 million in ticket sales.
In DVD rentals for the week ended May 18, according to IMDb.com, “P.S. I Love You” fell from No. 1 to No. 3, making way for “Mad Money” at No. 1 and “Untraceable” at No. 2.
On iTunes this morning, “American Idol” victor David Cook’s “The Time of My Life” was No. 1, while his “Dream Big” came in at No. 4.
And in books, Barbara Walters’ autobiography “Audition” remained No. 1 on The New York Times’ hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list for the week ended May 17, though it fell to No. 3 on USA Today’s book chart for the week ended May 18.
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TOP MOVIES
Weekend Box Office Estimates
Weekend of May 23-26, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
MOVIE
|
Engagements
|
Box office (millions)
|
|
1
|
Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (
Paramount)
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4,260
|
$126.04
|
|
2
|
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (
Buena Vista)
|
3,929
|
$28.64
|
|
3
|
Iron Man (
Paramount)
|
3,915
|
$25.65
|
|
4
|
What Happens in Vegas (Fox)
|
3,188
|
$11.15
|
|
5
|
Speed Racer (Warner Bros.)
|
3,112
|
$5.21
|
|
6
|
Baby Mama (Universal)
|
2,158
|
$4.21
|
|
7
|
Made of Honor (Sony)
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2,393
|
$4.20
|
|
8
|
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Universal)
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1,078
|
$2.20
|
|
9
|
Harold and Kumar Escape from
Guantanamo
Bay (Warner Bros.)
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750
|
$1.20
|
|
10
|
The Visitor (Overture)
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270
|
$0.92
|
|
Source: Yahoo Movies
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IMDb TOP DVD RENTALS
Week ending May 18, 2008
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|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
Mad Money
|
-
|
|
2
|
Untraceable
|
-
|
|
3
|
P.S. I Love You
|
1
|
|
4
|
The Great Debaters
|
-
|
|
5
|
27 Dresses
|
2
|
|
6
|
First Sunday
|
3
|
|
7
|
The Golden Compass
|
4
|
|
8
|
Juno
|
6
|
|
9
|
Cloverfield
|
5
|
|
10
|
I’m Not There
|
8
|
|
Source: IMDB
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|
ITUNES TOP 8 SONG DOWNLOADS
for Monday, May 26, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
|
1
|
The Time of My Life, David Cook
|
|
2
|
Viva la Vida, Coldplay
|
|
3
|
Take a Bow, Rihanna
|
|
4
|
Dream Big, David Cook
|
|
5
|
Pocketful of Sunshine, Natasha Bedingfield
|
|
6
|
I Kissed a Girl, Katy Perry
|
|
7
|
Bleeding Love, Leona Lewis
|
|
8
|
4 Minutes, Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake
|
|
Source: iTunes
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|
NEW YORK
TIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending May 17, 2008
|
|
Fiction (hardback)
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
Weeks on chart
|
|
1
|
The Host by Stephanie Meyer
|
1
|
2
|
|
2
|
Love the One You’re With by Emily Griffin
|
-
|
1
|
|
3
|
Sunday at Tiffany’s by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet
|
2
|
3
|
|
4
|
Phantom Prey by John Sandford
|
3
|
2
|
|
5
|
Invincible by
Troy Denning
|
-
|
1
|
|
Nonfiction (hardback)
|
|
1
|
Audition by Barbara Walters
|
1
|
2
|
|
2
|
The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria
|
5
|
3
|
|
3
|
Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
|
3
|
4
|
|
4
|
A Wolf at the Table by Agusten Burroughs
|
6
|
3
|
|
5
|
The Revolution by Ron Paul
|
7
|
4
|
|
Fiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
|
2
|
37
|
|
2
|
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
|
3
|
37
|
|
3
|
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
|
1
|
20
|
|
4
|
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
|
5
|
15
|
|
5
|
Wicked Pleasure by Lora Leigh
|
2
|
14
|
|
Nonfiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
|
2
|
68
|
|
2
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
1
|
69
|
|
3
|
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
|
4
|
21
|
|
4
|
Marley & Me by John Grogan
|
3
|
10
|
|
5
|
Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson
|
-
|
3
|
|
Source: New York Times
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USA
TODAY BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending May 18, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
The Hollow by Nora Roberts
|
2
|
|
2
|
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow
|
4
|
|
3
|
Audition by Barbara Walters
|
1
|
|
4
|
The Host by Stephanie Meyer
|
3
|
|
5
|
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
|
6
|
|
6
|
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The
Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
|
5
|
|
7
|
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
|
10
|
|
8
|
Love the One You’re With by Emily Griffin
|
-
|
|
9
|
The Good Guy by Dean Koontz
|
8
|
|
10
|
Sunday at Tiffany’s by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet
|
7
|
|
Source:
USA Today
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