Mauritius

Mauritius

Today we travel to the  small island of volcanic origin, Mauritius  which is 500 miles (800 km) east of Madagascar. Mauritius is the home of the dodo bird. Apparently there are several other species of birds unique to the island that nearly went extinct before people realized that they really should protect them. 

I also noticed that the age distribution of this country is more balanced. Upon further reading, they offer free basic healthcare services to their population, and have compulsory education for everyone between age 5 and 16. This is starting to sound like a really nice place to live. I was also amused to read that English was the official language of the country, but few people actually spoke it. Over half of the land on this island is arable, and most of it is planted with sugar cane for export. They also use some of their land to grow vegetables and tea for local consumption. While I know sugar makes good money, I'm more interested in the local crops. 

I found a couple of different videos about how to make tea in Mauritius. One was of a girl making tea. It was simple black tea with sugar, and she used hot water to stir up coffee mate powder to be the "milk" for her tea. While I'm a bit skeptical of non-dairy "cream" made from stuff you find in a chemistry lab, I have a feeling that it would taste a bit better than the canned milk we've tried before.

The video I decided to follow to make my tea is a little more grown up in tastes. Today we venture into the vanilla teas. I've found reference to several countries in East Africa growing vanilla, so why not put it in the tea? The tea leaves the woman in the video used were already vanilla flavored, and as luck would have it, I have vanilla tea in my cupboard. So sit back and watch some sèga dancers while we make some tea.

I decided to make a small batch. I used a generous cup of water (a little over 250 ml) and brought it to a boil with a cracked cardamom pod. Then I simmered a tea bag for 5 minutes, and added milk (you can add sugar if you want to). 
The nice thing about using a tea bag is there is no straining involved. I used a spoon to take the cardamom pod out, and it was ready to go. Fragrant vanilla with cardamom, and smooth, creamy milk. One more reason to love Mauritius. 

Comments

  1. Poppy CrockerDecember 17, 2017 at 7:41 AM

    Yay for something good!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lace makerDecember 17, 2017 at 8:38 AM

      Somehow I don't think that you are referring to the tea as good ;) this does sound like a really nice place to visit/live.

      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