Global Tea Time

Egyptian Karkade I decided to start my exploration in North Africa, and the Middle East. According to several websites, tea is the national drink of Egypt, and is more popular than coffee. Black tea is the most common beverage, and is mainly imported from Kenya and Sri Lanka. Black tea in southern Egypt is steeped in hot water for several minutes, sweetened with sugar, and often served with mint and milk. This tea tends to be a weaker brew. Black tea in northern Egypt is boiled for 5 minutes, and sweetened with a lot of sugar. It is said to be a black liquid. Green tea is available, but said to not be very popular.  I wasn't sure where this was going to go, so I kept looking. Then I found “red” tea, karkade. The first time I read about it, it was said to be enjoyed at special occasions like weddings. After perusing some videos on YouTube, and finding some other food blogs, I found that it is rather popular as a daily drink as well. This is an herbal “tea”, rather than o...

Thanks to reading some cooking blogs, I finally started to learn to like cooking in the last few years. It turns out that I really like international cooking, and learning techniques used around the world. Sasha Martin’s Global Table Adventure was one of my favorite blogs, but she finished her cooking trip and has since moved on to other things. Since researching, cooking, and then writing about full meals from other countries is more involved than I have time for, I decided to try a similar project with tea. I'm including herbal preparations along with traditional tea leaf drinks. Recipes for foods that incorporate tea leaves are also fair game.  This isn’t going to be some little girl, princess tea party thing. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am totally incapable of being a girly girl. My only trip out of the country was when I was in college. I did a summer session abroad at Egerton University in Kenya. I drank a lot of really good tea on that trip because water fresh from...