Global Tea Time

Coconut date rolls I decided to give you a bonus recipe post. Since dates are a popular food in the Middle East, I'm giving you my favorite recipe involving dates. Right now this is one of my favorite potluck recipes. They are kind of healthy because they are fruit based, and sweet enough that most people will eat them. Since dried dates are a seasonal item, I went a little nuts picking up dates at the grocery store last winter. Yeah, that's the only kind of dates I get at the grocery store, or anywhere else for that matter... The ingredients are pretty simple. Dried dates and coconut. I like to use unsweetened macaroon coconut, but any sort of shredded coconut will work. There are a lot of different ways to prepare them. Just eat them as is, make buttered dates. rip them in half, and roll them so the sticky part faces out, or grind them up and make rolls. The best method I have found is to soak them in hot water for around 15 minutes, drain them, then dump them i...

Apple Tea Lebanon For some reason Lebanon was a hard nut to crack. My first searches all brought up an iced tea recipe with rose water that was attributed to a Lebanese restaurant in New Orleans. I wasn't interested. Then I found reference to herbal teas made from local plants. Unfortunately those plants are not local where I live. I have no clue what some of those plants were, never mind where to find them (other than the internet). Then I found a spice tea recipe: star anise (yuck!), nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, poured over almonds, walnuts, pistachios, or pine nuts. I thought about making this without the star anise. Again, the nuts in the bottom of the cup sounded pretty good. However, this is a pretty common combination of spices (minus the usual tea leaves), so I kept looking. Then I found apple tea. Again, sounds kind of suspect. Lebanon is not known for apples. I looked up their climate. Mediterranean. Hot, dry summers, cool, rainy winters, and heavy snow in the ...

Persian Tea (No, it's not catnip tea.) Persia, Iran. This country taught me my first party trick with tea. Yes, I am that weird. Anyway, I tried several different styles again. The first vlog I watched about Iranian tea was a sweet woman making lavender tea. It sounded neat, a unique tea to the region. However, I didn't find anyone else making tea that way. Since it sounded intriguing, I went ahead and tried it. Meet the star of the show I eventually settled on using a tablespoon of Earl Gray, a teaspoon of lavender, and 2 cardamom pods. I forgot to measure my water the second time I made it. The tea is supposed to be concentrated, and then diluted to personal taste with hot water when served. I know it was probably a cup of water or slightly less (250 ml or slightly less). This picture was from my first attempt, when I was using some different ratios. Tea is traditionally brewed with a samovar, but I don't have one. My grandmother actually had one, but it wa...

Arabic Tea Many searches bring up "Arabic" tea. There were several countries where this was the main "hit" I got when searching for tea tradition. Overall, cardamom is a popular spice in the region. So are cloves, saffron, ginger, mint, and cinnamon. Once again, I find myself playing with my food (or drink in this case). First, the ingredients. I had some fun digging through my fabric stash, kitchen items on hand, and picking up some new items at the local thrift store. I work in a college town, so there are some really neat things that get dropped off at the second hand stores. I used cardamom pods (purchased at the local Indian grocery), ceyleon loose leaf tea, and cloves. I started with 4 cardamom pods that I cracked with my mortar and pestle. Apparently there are different colors of cardamom pods, I have green because that is what was available. I tossed in a couple of whole cloves after I cracked the cardamom for the photo op. Then I added these t...

North African mint tea One thing I have learned is that mint tea is wildly popular throughout the Middle East and North Africa. While the Middle East tends toward black tea with mint, North Africa prefers green tea with mint. Any search for North African or Middle Eastern tea brought up Moroccan mint tea right away. Further searches of YouTube videos for neighboring countries also brought me back to Morocco. I did find a slight difference with preparation in Algeria, so I started testing things out, and learned A LOT. Morocco and Algeria agreed on using gunpowder green tea. Gunpowder is a complete tea leaf that is rolled into a ball when it is dried. Gunpowder green tea originated in the Zhejiang province of China. The little balls unfurl as the tea steeps. Dry gunpowder tea The difference was that some people in Morocco rinsed their tea leaves, and some didn’t. The video from Algeria showed the tea and mint being rinsed in hot water 3 times before brewing. So I s...

White Coffee (ahwa beida) I decided that “white coffees” would qualify as tea. White coffee isn’t coffee at all, rather, it’s a beverage offered as an alternative to coffee (especially after dinner). People say it helps to aid digestion, and it has the added benefit of being caffeine free. It has also been the simplest preparation I’ve seen. There are 2 different flavors, and I will explore both varieties here because of their similarity. The ingredients are very simple. Water and... water. Oh, yeah, sugar or honey as well, if that’s your thing. The second water on that list is actually an essence water. is either rose water or orange blossom water. I’ve seen posts for both of these teas where you brew them with the actual flowers, but in the absence of real rose petals, or citrus blossoms rose water and orange blossom water will work. Some posts also note that less is more when using floral waters. I have to agree. As it turns out, rosewater was pretty easy to find. ...