Herbal Drinks
Chaas: the buttermilk glass with roasted cumin
In my aunt's kitchen in Ahmedabad, the last thing that happens after lunch is the sound of a small wooden churn tapping...
Section
Herbal Drinks
Slow tea mornings, herbal tisanes, traditional brews and the cultural stories behind the cups we hold each day.
18 entries in this section
Herbal Drinks
Sattu drink: a Bihar summer glass
By noon in Bhojpur the sun sits directly overhead and the dust on the road turns the colour of pale flour. My...
Herbal Drinks
Kokum sharbat: the Konkan summer cooler
On the Konkan coast, somewhere between Ratnagiri and Malvan, the summer arrives quietly and then all at once. By late April the...
Herbal Drinks
Cinnamon bark in warm water: a cold-season comfort
A small piece of cinnamon bark, perhaps the size of an adult thumb, sits in a glass mug of hot water on...
Herbal Drinks
Fennel seed water: a habit from coastal kitchens
In a small kitchen near the harbour in Kochi, the afternoon ritual was simple. Two teaspoons of dried fennel seeds were dropped...
Herbal Drinks
Rose petal tea: the gentlest of brews
A small ceramic jar in my mother-in-law's kitchen in Kyoto holds dried rose petals from her sister's garden in Yamanashi. They were...
Herbal Drinks
Cardamom coffee: Arabian hospitality in a small pot
In a majlis in Jeddah, on a Friday afternoon, the eldest man of the house held a small brass pot called a...
Herbal Drinks
Golden milk: a slow yellow cup before bed
In my grandmother's kitchen in Tamil Nadu, the small brass katori for haldi doodh sat on the highest shelf of the spice...
Herbal Drinks
Ginger lemon honey water: a traveler’s quiet companion
On a cold morning in Tunis, when the wind off the Mediterranean was sharp and the sky was the colour of old...
Herbal Drinks
Rooibos: the red bush of the Cederberg
The Cederberg mountains rise sharply about two hundred kilometres north of Cape Town. In summer the heat is dry and the rock...
Herbal Drinks
Lemongrass tisane: from Southeast Asian kitchens
In a kitchen in Hoi An, in central Vietnam, the lemongrass grew in a long ceramic trough on the back porch. The...
Herbal Drinks
Hibiscus cooler: a summer drink across continents
In a courtyard in Cairo, in August, the temperature was forty-one degrees and the cold karkadeh in the glass was almost the...