Karak Tea and Arabic Coffee have certainly taken its iconic prestige as the Middle East’s most preferable beverage, be it day or night. Karak tea is something much more than ordinary black tea.
There's a reason behind coffee houses have started serving or even concentrating on serving karak about the area. Gone are the days when you needed to drive to the nearby market area or to a shop, the interest for this sweet hot beverage is quickly increasing. It's assessed that as every day first lights far and wide, approximately two billion persons will have some tea. In Saudi Arabia, we commonly talk about espresso culture and of gahwa where the grounds are prepared over a hearth, and the social associations shaped over the steaming espresso pot were just as significant as the beverage itself. However, a transformation has for quite some time been brewing for a long time, and that is karak. A mix of Black tea, flavors, sugar and milk, the coffee, left to blend for a couple of decades in our crafting social culture, it’s turned into an informal national drink, with individuals arranging every day to support a roasting, fragrant glass while in transit to work.
This is the tea’s history, and how did it get here?
“Masala chai or Kadak chai, roughly interprets to ‘strong tea’ and is a South Asian especially Indian hot beverage made from a mixture of dark tea, sugar, cardamom, and milk. “It’s made by boiling this blend together on a low blaze,” There isn’t a straight answer for why kadak chai turned to karak tea, we could guess that South Asian labors in the region carried their love of milky tea as a small ease of what reminded them of their home and their origins.” Formerly carried over from the Indian subcontinent in the 1950s as people, looking for a life in a new land, reached in their crowds, it’s a beverage that is conventionally served in the morning, occasionally alongside a biscuit or two.
In the Indian subcontinent, the coffee and tea drinking culture can be traced back to colonial times and now tea is the most important factor in every household store. The tea of the subcontinent has not totally converted to become Karak tea, however. Unlike traditional South Asian ‘masala tea, karak tea uses just one spice, while ‘masala chai’ can often contain a various range of spices like pepper, ginger or cloves.
The regionally popular Chai Karak instead advanced into a drink that reflects local tastes by joining a spice joint to both cultures; cardamom, as well as a mutual love for the solid flavor of black tea. In Saudi Arabia and UAE, many small stores serve many cups of this comfort drink daily, at the beep of a car horn, to old and young, both local and expats.
Whether it joins them on a simple stroll with a loved one or while driving around and catching up with friends, this modest beverage has become an integral part of local culture. A complete addictive flavor, it has even found its way into ice cream and cupcakes!
Make Karak Tea at home
Sharing a basic recipe to make karak at home. Don’t be scared to play around with spices to your taste, plus ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg, as well as customizing how much sugar and milk you add.
1. Combine a teaspoon of loose black tea and crushed cardamom with a cup of boiling water and boil for a couple of minutes.
2. Remove from the heat; add milk until the tea becomes a creamy brown color and then add sugar to taste.
3. Place back on the heat and boil for a further two minutes. Serve hot!