Lesotho

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 bell curve) in that country. But I digress, we're here to talk about tea. What did my research say that people in Lesotho like to drink? Our old friend, rooibos.
Yes, red bush tea. I'm not sure if they put sugar or honey in it, or if they just drink it plain. Given the fact that I don't like sweet tea, I have mine straight.
Okay, okay, I admit I recycled some pictures here. I have tried plain rooibos tea, and I really don't like it. Adding lemon or ginger helps. Mixing it with milk made it better as well, but drinking it straight would take a little more training to like. I will admit that I would choose it over sugary sodas if those were my only safe beverage choices available.

I did find an interesting link that talked about how rooibos is grown and processed. Check it out.

There was also one country in southern Africa I couldn't find any good information on. Namibia. I did find reference to moringa tea. If I ever come across some reasonably priced moringa leaves at the Indian grocery, I will have to try it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Equatorial Guinea

Image
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 c...
Read more

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