Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea

Today we go to Equatorial Guinea, which consists of "Rio Muni" - Continental Equatorial Guinea, and 5 small islands known collectively as Insular Equatorial Guinea. When researching this country, I found "osang" tea. I found the name only, no instructions on how to make it.
Mystery tea
Upon doing some research, osang is a generic name for African milk tea. I couldn't pin down any specific flavors used for this region, just a general description of how people all over Africa make this tea. The base is black tea with milk. The suggested add ins are shown below.
Tea Masala (thank you Indian food store), ginger, cardamom, or lemongrass. No, don't use them all together. Today I'm in the mood for cardamom, so that's what I used. The one blog I found about making this suggested a 1:1 ratio of milk and tea. I used 3/4 cup (about 200 ml) of each, with 3 cardamom pods. As usual, you can add sugar to taste.
I decided to add the cardamom pods to the mixture when it was cold, and heat them together to allow the cardamom to steep longer. So I stirred, and stirred, and brought this to a simmer. Then this particular person said to remove the tea from the heat to add the tea leaves.





I used 1 tsp of tea (2 grams), and let it steep covered for 5 minutes.












Then I strained it into my cup (thinking that this looks a little light, but oh well). I actually made this a second time with maybe 1/4 of the mixture being milk (unsweetened vanilla almond milk), and liked it much better. Overall, it is a tea I will surely make again.




Comments

  1. Poppy CrockerOctober 11, 2017 at 9:25 AM

    Cardamom smells so good! I'm never sure what to do with it, though. (And you KNOW I'm not going to put it in tea.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lace makerOctober 11, 2017 at 4:12 PM

      I sprinkle it over oatmeal with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. I also made cardamom bread once for Christmas.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Have a cup of Christmas

Image
I'm skipping ahead just a little bit because of a Central American holiday tradition. The hibiscus flowers are in bloom, and it's tea season. In this part of the world, hibiscus tea is known as "sorrel" instead of " bissap ". While my research on the tea of North America is not complete, I found that several countries make sorrel for Christmas. Trinidad and Tobago , the southern most Caribbean islands. They gained their independence from the UK in 1962. They are a continuation of the Andes mountains from Venezuela. They have a tropical climate, and temperatures vary widely between day and night. They used to grow a lot of sugarcane, but the last of the sugarcane estates was closed. Cocoa and coffee are also export crops. Most of the population is rural, and is made up of people from Africa, East Indian, and mixed race.  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines , are part of the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea. These islands gained their independen
Read more

Ataya/Waraga/Tuareg Tea

Image
"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 , Mau
Read more