White Coffee (ahwa beida)

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. There are several Indian groceries in the area, and they all have bottles of rose water available. The orange blossom water proved to be a little more of a challenge to find. Thankfully there is a small Middle Eastern grocery in the area, and they had both rose and orange blossom water.

I found I preferred roughly the same ratios of water to essence water for both flavors. My teacup holds about half a cup (125 ml), and I add 1/4 tsp of essence water. I would actually use a scant 1/4 tsp for the orange blossom water, and the full 1/4 tsp for the rose water. I don’t believe in putting sugar in tea, but I imagine you might prefer to use a little more essence water if you do add sugar to your drink.

Since this was such a simple tea, I decided to go exploring a little further and look for other ways to use my flavored waters. So I googled what fruits were popular in the Middle East, then raided my cupboards to see what I had (since nuts were included in the list of fruits, I decided to include them). 

So it looks like it’s fruit salad time. I used one orange and quartered and diced 2 guavas.

Gave it a squeeze of lime juice.

added 1/4 tsp of orange blossom water. You can also add some sugar or honey if you want, but I didn’t think it needed it.

Then I put it in the fridge for a couple of hours to let the flavors meld. 

As luck had it, guavas were on the list, and I had some on hand completely by chance. I was in the grocery store a couple of days ago, and I needed to get fruit. I came across a package of guavas by chance, and they smelled so good. Oh dear me, I turned into one of those people googling a food on their phone to try to figure out how to choose and use said item. While the seeds are edible (per the Internet), they are not chew-able, so if you don’t want the feeling of chewing gravel you will want to prepare them in a way where the seeds are removed. 

Overall, I really liked the fruit salad. The orange blossom water gives it a little zip. It would also be good with some almonds sprinkled on top for serving.