Global Tea Time

Since I started this blog, I have continued to find/acquire things that relate to countries past. Most of this seems to relate to Morocco. While I was researching Morocco, I fell in love with their tea cups. They are smallish glasses (they hold about 6 ounces or 200 ml), and are brightly colored with fancy gold designs on them. I make lace, so of course I'm going to like a cup with a lacy design on it. The only problem was price. Amazon was the only outlet I found for purchasing them, and they only came in sets of 6. That's not so bad, but the cheapest set was $42.00. Sorry, I'm not going to drop that kind of cash on some tea cups. Thanks to a recent field trip to a tea shop, I now own a Moroccan tea cup. While the price of the cups was the same as what I found online, they were sold as singles, and I would spring the cash for one. Isn't it pretty? It's a bit hard to see, but the background color is dark purple. They also use red, blue, green, yellow - prett...

Lesotho Lesotho is a tiny country inside of South Africa. I was always intrigued as to how it got there. Apparently there are some major mountains that carved out that piece of land making it distinct from the area around it. Lesotho joins 2 other countries that are independent republics inside of another country. The others are Vatican City, and the Republic of San Marino. I'm always amused to look at the religious breakout of African countries, because Christianity is the highest percentage, but people still think of it as a heathen, non-Christian continent. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, over 90% of the population is Christian. I'm not surprised in the least. I often wonder why people want to go to this part of the world as missionaries. If they are looking for converts, they are a bit late. Religion aside, this is yet another country where over half of the population is under age 30. It's always a bit sobering to realize that I am over the hill (of the be...

Flavored rooibos tea I really wasn't able to find specific information about tea in Swaziland online. I did find reference to making flavored rooibos tea, so I used a generic tea brewing method that was linked to Africa. I'm not sure of the authenticity, but I know that ginger flavored beverages are very popular there. So, we're making ginger rooibos tea today. I'm using some of my dried  ginger. I washed it (peeling it isn't going to happen in this form), and put it in a saucepan with 4 cups (about a liter) of water. I think this piece of ginger kind of looks like a hammerhead shark.  I will admit I thought about putting this in the pressure cooker to see how the ginger responds, but I decided to document sauce pan first. I make no guarantees about the future. I simmered the ginger for 20 to 25 minutes, and pulled it out of the pan to slice. All but the outer millimeter was still dry, but it was warm, and soft enough to slice. Technically I haven't ...

Botswana Botswana is a small, landlocked country just north of South Africa. That's how I remember my college classmate Toomie describing it. Nobody knew where the country she was from was. Toomie was fun. We went on a class trip to a trade show in Orlando during the summer between our junior and senior year. I don't remember how many people were on the trip, but Toomie and I went to Epcot together on our free day. It was so funny, because the workers who were from various parts of Africa all immediately struck up a conversation with Toomie, but they kept giving me strange looks trying to figure out why this white lady was hanging out with a woman from Botswana. Toomie would notice and introduce me, and added that I had been to Africa - Kenya, and then I was welcomed warmly. They all seemed a bit amazed that a white American had been somewhere in Africa. All I know about tea in Botswana comes from Alexander McCall-Smith, and his series of books from "The Number One...

In the course of researching tea culture of southern Africa, I realized I had a primary source (albeit old). When I studied abroad in Kenya in May/June of 2000, I wanted to find some African published magazines. I picked these up at a book store in the Sarit Centre (a mall in Nairobi - I have no clue if that mall is still there). I was hoping for Kenyan magazines, but my choices were magazines from South Africa or Europe. As luck has it, I still have the 2 magazines I bought. I thought it would be a long shot finding anything about tea in them. Cosmopolitan proved me right. Fashionable people only drink overpriced mineral water and alcohol. At least they do if you believe everything you see in a magazine. Femina was an unfamiliar brand when I picked it up, but it proved to be a much more down to earth publication. After a minute or so flipping through the pages, I realized that I hit the jackpot.  Given the fact that I bought these magazines so far from South Africa, I have...

South Africa The internet agrees that South Africa (SA) is the only place in the world where rooibose tea grows. This is an herbal tea, not a real tea leaf. Oddly enough, I really couldn't find any information about how they prepare tea with my usual methods of research. All of the countries toward the southern tip of the continent is like that. I eventually googled how South Africans make rooibose tea and got some information. While I have rooibose tea bags, I decided to get some loose rooibose to photograph. A whole 36 cents later, here is a portion of what I got. This is about a teaspoon (2 grams).   I added this to 1 cup (250 ml) of water and brought to a boil. The resource I found stated that it is boiled much longer in SA. The instructions said that they simmered it 30 minutes to achieve a deep red color.  Simmering... Simmering... At the end of 30 minutes, I ended up with s liquid this color.  The hipster interpretati...