Do you know what a rosella is? Not the bird, but the plant, an edible hibiscus that's best known in Australia as the main ingredient for a delicious jam.

A farming family north of the Sunshine Coast is winning over new fans with the old-fashioned favourite, growing one of the few commercial crops in the country.

The rosella revival began with the love story of a farmer and a cook.

A perfect match in love and business, cook CC Diaz-Petersen met her farmer husband Greg Petersen in 2012. ( Landline: Jennifer Nichols )

Cecilia Diaz and Greg Petersen met as stallholders at a farmer's market in 2012.

"A fellow told us there's a young lady over there chasing gooseberries and wants to know all about it. So, I went at the end of the day before we all packed up and there was just the biggest smile and I thought, this is a good-looking sheila," Mr Petersen laughed.

CC Diaz and Greg Petersen married in 2013. ( Supplied: CC Diaz-Petersen )

Love bloomed and the couple married the year after they met.

Ms Diaz-Petersen, also known as CC, joked that he gave her gooseberries and goosebumps.

"And they say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I think I got it right there too," she said.

Filipino-born CC worked in real estate, banks and marketing in Australia before finally pursuing her passion of cooking as a career.

Greg proudly followed in his father Joe's footsteps.

Greg Petersen was proud to follow in his father Joe's footsteps and become a farmer. ( Landline: Jennifer Nichols )

"When I was four years old I used to have a bit of a garden beside the house and I'd grow things myself, as good as my father, and one night I said at the table I want to be a farmer when I grow up. And here I am," he said.

In 1980 he helped his parents, Joe and Pat, break new ground just outside the tiny town of Woolooga, north of the Sunshine Coast, selling to the Brisbane markets and opening a small farm-gate shop.

Joe and Pat Petersen moved their small crops operation to Woolooga in 1980. ( Supplied: Greg Petersen )

CC found inspiration in the family's huge variety of small crops. Especially, one ingredient she'd never encountered.

"She wondered what this thing was called a rosella that we were growing, and I told her all about it.

"She learnt how to cook it and it just grew and grew. CC has experimented with these things like nobody on earth," Mr Petersen senior said.

A tiny commercial kitchen was built onto the family home and CC Diaz-Petersen began making the jam, whereas Australian processors abandoned it as was not worth the work.

Each batch of 50 kilograms takes two people three hours to de-seed and another three hours to cook.

The separated seeds are simmered and strained, to collect a pectin packed liquid that naturally sets the rich red tasty jam.

"Handmade from the start of growing to picking, to shelling, to boiling, to measuring, why wouldn't you call it a labour of love?" CC laughed.

"We can get a couple of girls up there shelling, we can get 50 kilos in four hours and then CC puts it into the jar. She never stops cooking," her husband added.

The rosella revival is providing picking jobs for locals. ( Landline: Jennifer Nichols )

Jam was just the start; CC's Kitchen now has 22 rosella products including a snack pack of candied rosellas and local barenut macadamias, rosella rhubarb jam, rosella chutney, rosella jelly, rosella himalayan salt, rosella syrup, rosella vinegar, rosella chilli sauce, rosella cordial and more.

The Petersens have planted five times as many shrubs to supply CC's Kitchen and their customers.

"We send right up to Atherton Tablelands, Darwin, Melbourne, produce just goes everywhere. Everybody in the jam-making world has got to know Petersen's farm," CC's father-in-law enthused.

"It's thrilled me to pieces because we never aimed to get into that thing, but through CC we're here today and going like hell."

For the last three years, hundreds of visitors have travelled to Petersen's farm for the annual big rosella festival.

Charlotte and Lucy English are rosella fans ( Landline: Jennifer Nichols )

Some were being introduced to rosellas for the first time while for others, the tastes and smells took them back to their childhood.

"I just remember the memories associated with the rosellas, sitting in my grandma's kitchen and just the smells of the cooking and yeah, it was really special times for our family actually," Lucy English said.

Still grown extensively overseas for their fruit, leaves and fibre, rosellas were once a common crop in Australia.

In the 1950s, Buderim's Merrybud jam factory made rosellas into a conserve.

Manager at the Merrybud Jam Factory in 1955, later known as the Buderim Ginger Factory. ( Supplied: John Oxley Library )

A worker on the Merrybud jam production line in 1955. ( Supplied: John Oxley Library )

Watch this story on Landline at 12:30pm on Sunday.