Ataya/Waraga/Tuareg Tea

"Berber Whiskey"

What do you make on a Saturday afternoon when you're tired? I mean really tired. Like you just woke up from a 3 hour nap, and all you want to do is go back to sleep. I will admit I was a bit leery of this one when I found out how it was made, but this is wildly popular so I had to try it. This version of tea has many names, and some sources say that this is used like alcohol in cultures that forbid drinking and using drugs. 

Ataya (or attaya - I've seen it spelled both ways), also known as Tuareg tea (so named for the Tuareg tribe), is a very social tea ceremony in West Africa. Most reviews say to expect to take at least 3 hours and have several rounds of tea. Over time, each round of tea is supposed to get milder and sweeter. Sometimes instructions say that mint is added. It is popular in many countries:
The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal (The Gambia is actually inside Senegal with a small border on the Atlantic), Sierra Leone, Mali, Mauritania, Niger

I was also amused to find some sources where ataya tea is blamed for causing mental illness, laziness, and addiction. It is largely drunk in regions where people don't drink alcohol or use other drugs, so caffeine and sugar are the scapegoats of these accusations. Young people take too much time making this and socializing, they don't go out and get jobs... the anger at tea went on and on. As one of the oldest of the "boomerang generation", I remember trying to find work as a young adult in a bad economy. It's not easy, and I can see how young people in that situation would want to get together and talk about it. I will admit some trepidation over trying this tea. Not because I was afraid of going crazy, rather the videos showed me right away that this was a really intense tea. I found an article by someone in the Peace Corps talking about learning to make ataya, and liking it in spite of the fact most foreigners don't.

Ataya is made with green tea, traditionally gunpowder tea leaves. Gunpowder is expensive in this country, so I decided I was going for the cheapest tea I could find. Thank you Aldi's for having boxes of tea on sale for $0.99. Less than a dollar!

I've never seen tea bags packed in individual clear plastic pouches.

Why did I want the cheapest tea I could find? The instructions say to add a cup of green tea leaves. A cup, in this case, means what you are going to drink it out of. Tea is traditionally taken in small, clear glass cups. So I empty 7 tea bags into my cup...

That is a lot of tea. I haven't been able to find any information on how much water to use, but the videos all show the tea coming out of the pot filling one of these glasses pretty close to the top, so I guessed (and in the end I had a small dribble of extra tea leftover).

(The recipe also calls for a cup of sugar, which you can see here as well). The water is boiled over a low charcoal fire, or maybe a propane burner if available. Since it involves a fire, people like to sit outside and do this which attracts people to pass the time of day.

So naturally, I use what I have available.

My apologies to the correct method of making this. It only gets worse from here. So, I boiled my water, added my cup of tea, and steeped for 3 minutes.

Check out this color (okay, all the videos showed people using small, metal teapots on the fire, but again, using what I have).

I was never able to find out if the teapots have an internal strainer, or if tea leaves are allowed into the drink. Per the videos, it is a thick, dark, viscous liquid (appealing, I know). Looking at this pretty much answered my question. This had to get strained, so I strained it into another container and added my cup of sugar. Then I poured it into one of my glasses.

Traditionally, one glass is held on a tray, and the tea is poured from a great height into it from the other glass. This builds up a thick layer of foam.

This is as close as I came to doing this the traditional way. I did some pouring over the sink, and used a second container that was better at pouring. You pour back and forth a lot in order to mix the sugar in. I think I did 5 or 6 times, then I decided that I had lost enough tea and dumped it back in my "teapot". Back in the microwave for 30 sec to warm up. Then it sat for a few more minutes before undergoing another round of mixing. I did this cycle a couple of more times before I decided I had had enough. If I had someone to talk to, I could see taking longer to play around with it, but I don't have any tea drinking friends in the area, so I'm on my own.

I totally failed in the froth making department. The top half of the glass is supposed to be a nice, thick froth. That's how you get so many cups of tea out of such a small amount of tea. It's still a bit light compared to the images I see online, but it's time for a try...

Wow, that was sweet! Really sweet, and also bitter if you stopped to think about it. Using the full cup of sugar does cut the bitterness like everyone says. It also explained why I discovered anything I had touched in the making of this tea had become really sticky. If I were to make this outside on the side of the road, I could see me being swarmed by ants looking for a good sugar high. You should look up a video of someone making ataya (often referred to Senegalese tea) on YouTube. It is really impressive to see them pouring the tea back and forth and not spilling any. I tried my sip, and decided that I didn't need to go for a few more hours to try some more rounds. It is an intense tea experience, and definitely an acquired taste. Now to go wipe down more sticky spots in the kitchen and change the ant baits before I get overrun.