A concoction of richness is brewing below the soil of a Limpopo district that has long been counted among the poorest districts in South Africa.
Deep in the belly of Marble Hall in Sekhukhune, villagers are harvesting and processing overflowing volumes of indigenous and nutritional herbs that had been disregarded for decades.
These are the makings of the award-winning tea by Setšong Tea Crafters, the brainchild of mother and daughter duo Nondumiso, 63, and Retang Phaahla, 33.
Embracing culture
The name did not come about as a shot in the dark, but rather a careful reflection of where it all started and what the brand stands for.
Setšong is a Sepedi word meaning culture.
The wellness tea varieties identified and produced by the agri-business have been consumed for more than five generations by the elderly members of the Bapedi tribe in Sekhukhune.
They tell a story of history and heritage.
“It’s not just about the tea, but it’s fully about us embracing culture,” Retang, the CEO of Setšong Tea Crafters, tells The Citizen.
Buried treasure
For Retang, the story began in the backyard of her late paternal grandparents’ home in Sekhukhune.
The family had moved there from Gauteng to implement asset-based development programmes that Nondumiso and Retang’s brother Sechaba, 40, had been engaged in while living in Pretoria.
This was also during a time when Retang was feeling unfulfilled by her nine-to-five job as a quantity surveyor.
It turned out that what she had studied for was not particularly her cup of tea.
“Our first encounter with it was through my grandmother’s cousin who was looking after my grandmother’s home. She would be grinding this tea in the evening, only to find that the tree was right outside my grandmother’s house, but we didn’t know,” she said.
Since many of the people who were from the village now had access to branded tea, the traditional herbs became associated with poverty and were mostly consumed in secret.
The stigma, Retang believes, is what hindered others from passing down these traditional treasures.
“Only when we grounded ourselves down to the community, we got to learn about these treasures.”
And it also helped that the natural flavour was “amazing”.
Retang said before branded tea became the preferred choice, villagers would harvest herbs from the wild, grind them and dry them or even drink them as tea while they were still fresh.
From soil to teacup
Working with a group of community members that developed a movement called Bapedi a re boeleng setšong (Bapedi, let us return to our roots, culture and heritage), they harvested the tea and used a farm the family had bought from Retang’s great-uncle to process it.
“So initially we were trying to elevate and uplift all the elements around our culture, from our attire and what we eat,” Retang said.
She said they were looking for natural resources with commercial value that could uplift the community and create jobs.
The tea was a hit, the social entrepreneur told The Citizen.
“We didn’t have to work hard to develop them, all we did was add value, creating different blends and flavours so that it can be appealing to the modern consumer.”
When they established the company in 2017, they barely had the necessary equipment but eventually secured machinery that emulated the manual process after two or three years.
Because grinding on a rock is a lot of work, she said.
And through the development of Setšong, they have been able to help restore the integrity in the teas, which she says are packed with nutrients, including vitamin A, C and E, zinc, fibre and beta‐carotene.
“Our aim is not just to bring back that integrity around the tea, but fully around our culture and our heritage.”
In doing so, they have managed to grow from selling at Joburg’s famous Rosebank Sunday Market to employing 25 permanent staff members and 10 seasonal workers harvesters.
They also host tea tours and cultural experiences at the farm.
The Veuve Clicquot nod
In 2025, Setšong Tea Crafters received a nod from premier French Champagne brand Veuve Clicquot when Retang walked away with the Bold Woman Award.
“Winning really validated our journey. It validated the fact that our African stories can be appreciated on a global level. Sometimes there are challenges but it really assisted me and my whole team to see that and to validate that we’re on the right track and that we’re doing something meaningful, something that’s different and that can inspire others to do the same in their own communities,” she said.
“Our indigenous knowledge, these plants, herbs, foods, and things like that, that are part of our culture, we undermine them so much. Because as black people, we associate a lot of value to foreign brands, but us now being recognised by one of the most premium brands, most influential brands in our black society as well, really did also create a lot of value in terms of how people perceive our brand.”
Besides the teas being available in SA, Namibia, Lesotho and Botswana, they have also recently started exporting the tea to the US and the UK and are working their way into Japan.
