Karkadeh

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Karkadeh, dried flowers of the Hibiscus sabdariffa .

Karkadeh , also Karkade, ( Arabic كركديه, scientifically Hibiscus sabdariffa L. , German Roselle ) is the Arabic name for a plant species and the mallow tea made from it with an intense red color. Karkadeh is popular as a drink in Egypt and Sudan and is drunk hot or cold.

Manufacturing and Consumption

Karkadeh at a tea stall in Kerma , a small town in northern Sudan.

For preparing tea, the dried leaves of red are Blütenkelche doused briefly with hot water during prolonged pulling Let (ten minutes), the result is bitter. In Sudanese tea rooms, pre-soaked flowers stored in a glass are also occasionally used. The taste of the hot, sugar-mixed tea is fruity and sour, for which a proportion of about 13 percent of a mixture of citric and malic acid in the dried sepals is responsible. Small amounts of tartaric acid and ascorbic acid have a flavor-enhancing effect . The quality criterion is when the dried flowers are as dark red and large as possible. They are more aromatic, but the light-colored petals are more acidic. In both countries, Karkadeh is the most important standard drink in traditional, simple teahouses alongside black tea and Arabic coffee, which is often mixed with ginger. In Sudan, women mostly sell Karkadeh at street stalls. Their range also includes peppermint as an additive in black tea, which can also be added to the Karkadeh if desired. In dry heat, the hot tea has a thirst-quenching effect.

The cold drink is also drunk sweetened and tastes similar to cherry juice . Egyptian hotels often offer cold karkadeh as an alternative to fruit juices as a breakfast drink. For production, equal parts of dried flowers and sugar are mixed with water, boiled and reduced to a thick red syrup that can be kept for some time when filled in bottles. The syrup can be diluted with ten times the amount of water and ice. Karkadeh is most popular in Egypt during the hot summer months around Luxor and Aswan . In West Africa, for example in Burkina Faso and Mali, the tea is often drunk cold, strongly sugared as jus de bissap as lemonade in bottles, but also loose on the roadside.

Karkadeh is also used to make desserts, ice cream and as a flavoring. A sweet, red jelly containing bananas and guavas is available in restaurants in Sudan . The dessert is gelatinized by the pectin contained in Karkadeh. In times of hunger, the barely edible plant, including the roots, is eaten.

The oil content of Karkadeh seeds is 20 percent. Oil that can be obtained from these seeds, like oil from watermelon seeds, is suitable as a substitute for conventional vegetable oils. The seeds are also used for preparing a slurry in Darfur as furundu and in the Nuba mountains as Kunafa represents a proteinaceous meat analogue. After the seeds have been boiled briefly with water, they are left to ferment for ten days until mushrooms start to grow. Then the mass is mixed and laid out for another two days. The porridge is eaten in Darfur as mullah furundu, similar to kawal . Kawal is a porridge that is also made from the green leaves of a type of senna by fermentation . For both plants, the fermentation process is better suited than cooking to make them palatable. In the Nuba Mountains, the porridge from the seeds is mixed with millet porridge ( asida ) and eaten as madida .

Cultivation and Marketing

Ripe flowers before harvest
Karkadeh in the spice market in Cairo

Cultivation areas in Egypt are the area around Aswan, Qena , the Fayyum oasis near Cairo and smaller areas in the Nile Delta .

The Sudanese growing areas, in which production is carried out for export, are mainly in Kordofan and further west in Darfur . Karkadeh thrives on the sandy loam soils there in rain-fed agriculture . A combined cultivation with low acacia trees ( Acacia senegal ) has proven to be useful. This means that two agricultural export products of Sudan can be cultivated at the same time without artificial irrigation: In 2008, 19,000 tons of gum arabic were produced and 24,000 tons of Karkadeh; Half of the tea went to the country's own needs. For every ton of Karkadeh processed, the export proceeds are 1,000 US dollars.

Karkadeh needs 200 millimeters of rainfall during the growth phase. The seeds are therefore sown at the beginning of the rainy season (in summer). Planting, harvesting and processing Karkadeh is done in Darfur and North Kordofan in small businesses and is women's work. Development organizations endeavor at the local level to improve cultivation and processing methods as well as marketing opportunities. One project is to support 40,000 farmers with seeds, among other things.

The calyxes are cut off by hand with a knife, the sepals are plucked by hand in a second step, washed or cleaned in shaking sieves and then dried. There are differences in quality due to the type of harvest and drying: the flowers are usually laid out in the sun for four to five days. There is also oven-dried or freeze-dried tea. The concentration of organic acids and pectin as well as the flower color varies accordingly . Dried Karkadeh flowers can be found in large sacks at spice markets in almost all cities in the region. Cairo offers the largest selection .

Cultural meaning

Hibiscus is used for various medicinal purposes around the world, especially for colds in the region. Karkadeh in sugar syrup and mixed with salt, pepper and asafoetida is supposed to help against mentally related stomach disorders.

It has become customary to serve karkadeh at wedding parties. Karkadeh can be of cultural importance, especially within Islamic societies in Sudan. The Siberian festival in the Nuba Mountains , a kind of harvest festival of the traditional religion, for which the alcoholic Merisa is usually drunk, is celebrated with karkadeh by the people who have converted to Islam.

The plant was first described in the 16th century. Although her original home is said to be Southeast Asia and she is grown worldwide, Karkadeh from Egypt and Sudan has a special reputation. The Arabic name has also become naturalized in Switzerland (“Karkade”) and France (“Karkady”) and is known as far as Indonesia. There, teh mesir (“Egyptian tea”) comes on the market as “Karkadeh”.

literature

  • AM Abusin, B. Percy: Marketing of oilseeds and karkadeh in Kordofan province, based on a study tour from 26 October - 15 November 1970. FAO, Rome 1973.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James A. Duke: Hibiscus Sabdariffa L. In: Handbook of Energy Crops. 1983 (unpublished). Purdue University, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, West Lafayette (USA).
  2. ^ Fran Osseo-Asare: Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Greenwood Publishing Group 2005, ISBN 0-313-32488-3 , p. 37.
  3. ^ John Feeney: The Red Tea of ​​Egypt. In: Saudi Aramco World, September / October 1981
  4. ↑ Ahmad Al Safi: Traditional Sudanese Medicine. A primer for health care providers, researchers, and students. Dar al-Azza, Khartoum 2006, p. 315
  5. ↑ Specifications of Kerkedeh (herbiscus sabdariffs). ( Memento of November 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Sudan Trade Point (lists the composition of the export product).
  6. ↑ AM Gaafar, AA Salih, O. Luukkanen, MA El Fadl, V. Kaarakka: Improving the traditional Acacia senegal-crop system in Sudan: the effect of tree density on water use, gum production and crop yields. In: Agroforestry Systems , No. 66, 2006, pp. 1-11
  7. ↑ Executive Summary. Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen (Norway), pp. 87, 89.
  8. ↑ Diversifying in Darfur. Releasing the potential of Karkadeh in Darfur. Practical action.
  9. ↑ Teh Karkadeh Rosella (Teh Mesir). shopee.co.id ("Karkadeh" pack in Indonesia)