A deep mahogany-red infusion, naturally sweet and woody, with a faint honey aroma. Caffeine-free, it is drunk from morning to night, plain or with a splash of milk and a drizzle of honey.

Why this dish? Rooibos, a caffeine-free infusion from a shrub that grows only in South Africa, is the country's domestic hot drink. For an intellectual who hosted dinner parties and made the table 'a place of intellectual and political sociability', it is the tea that accompanies long evening conversations.

You can talk until midnight over a pot of rooibos without fear of not sleeping a wink—that's its merit, for those who love a conversation to linger. This shrub grows nowhere else but in our Cedarberg mountains; it is our only contribution, ours, to the world's pharmacopoeia of teas. I let it steep much longer than ordinary tea—it never becomes bitter, only redder and rounder. A hint of honey, and it accompanies the fiercest debate as well as the weariest silence.

How it was made : The Khoisan peoples of the Cedarberg harvested and dried rooibos long before the arrival of Europeans. Commercialized from the early 20th century, it became the national hot drink, prized for its lack of caffeine and natural sweetness.

The contemporary twist : Serve it iced in summer, with mint and lemon: a refreshing 'rooibos iced tea' without a trace of caffeine.

Sources : South African Rooibos Council, historical notes · Renata Coetzee, The South African Culinary Tradition, 1977

Nadine Gordimer · Charactorium