Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Actual Karkade


Visitors to Egypt are often taken with a deep red drink that is served either hot or cold and has a tangy citrus taste. It is a tea made from a variety of hibiscus flower and it contains a lot of vitamin C. For years I would look at the flowering hibiscus bushes in gardens wondering if they were the source of the tea, because the petals used to make the tea are heavy and thick. Finally I found this small bush that looks a great deal like a peony and has rather small pink flowers. After the bush flowers, a seed pod develops with thick dark red petals covering it...the Karkade!

4 comments:

Abid said...

Cool! Greenery!

Benjamin Madison said...

I've drunk this in West Africa too - in Gambia and Senegal. The drink is called wanjo there and the plant is called follereh (in Fula or Fulfulde language). A beautifully colored drink and very thirst-quenching.

Mahmoud said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

So the plant I didnt know in your other post is Karkadee :D
I never knew it was difficult to collect.
Thanks again :)
Lovely blog :D

On my blog I am trying to collect the Modern Egyptian spoken language (of Cairo) & etymology of words from other languages. Please have a look and if possible do contribute; I am sure you have lots to say about this :) Thanks for a great blog and insight into the aspects of Egypt/Cairo/Giza that r usually ignored today (of lack of knowledge or interest or capacity to look and see).

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