Southern Africa

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 a feeling that they are a good representation for the countries in central Africa that I really couldn't find any information on. I had thought about going to the library to see if I could find any travel guides to those countries, but then I realized that the best library to do that research at was surrounded by drunken college students (or the reminders of their partying the night before). That particular library is also a real pain to get to because there is NO CONVENIENT PARKING. Seriously, they bought a book mobile to drive around town because they realized that a vast majority of the population was not going to the library because of the parking issue. 

I didn't feel like trying to wrestle an old magazine onto my scanner (it was a bit stiff from age), so you will just have to live with photographs of an open magazine. In addition to advertisements, I also skimmed a couple of the health/wellbeing related articles, and found more references to tea. In all, I found reference to 12 different types of tea. 

Ceylon (black tea)
Honeybush
Rooibos
Peppermint
Chamomile 
St John's Wort with Rose Hips
Lipton
Green tea with mint
Green tea with jasmine
Herbal lemon tea
Fennel herbal tea
Honey herbal tea

It seems that bagged tea is popular here, as well. I decided to try a couple of teas that I don't normally drink (and I already had the stuff to make them in my cupboard - well, mostly). 

I don't remember exactly why I have an old box of chamomile tea. I really don't like it. I describe it as tasting like something swept up off the barn floor. That said, I decided to brew it with some fennel seeds, mainly because I didn't want to try brewing the fennel alone. I'll admit that I didn't have high hopes for this tea. A few weeks ago I added fennel to some soup I was making. When I tasted it, I wondered what that funny taste was. Then I realized that the 1 change I made to my recipe was fennel. Oh well. 






brewing...
As it turns out, my skepticism was not unfounded. Blah. 


Since I didn't have any St. John's Wort (and didn't plan to get any), I decided to see what rose hips brewed by themselves tasted like. I know rose hips are added to things for vitamin C. 

The verdict here is that you get vaguely flavored water. It does have a nice color, though. All in all, I think I'll stick to my black tea, peppermint (a favorite of mine), lemon tea, and green tea with mint. 

Comments

  1. Lace makerNovember 5, 2017 at 5:55 AM

    P.S. I finally got another recipe posted on my other page http://123randomrecipes.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Poppy CrockerNovember 6, 2017 at 3:47 PM

    It's such a thrill to find something relevant to a project when you're going through old magazines and not sure they will have anything!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lace makerNovember 6, 2017 at 4:45 PM

      I was really amazed. I should look closer for other advertisements that pertain to everyday life. Granted, their adverts are a little different than ours. I happened to see one for plastic surgery that left nothing to the imagination.

      Delete

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