Cinnamon Tea

Last Ramadan, I was invited to a tent where we were served many kinds of tea. One kind reminded me of a red candy I'd last had as a boy, only it wasn't red. I asked, and was told it was something that, to me, sounded like gerfa (but probably wasn't). The host sent the person handing out the cups of tea out to retrieve the key ingredient, which turned out to be cinnamon bark.

With the advent of the cooler months, I thought that cinnamon tea might be warming in at least two ways. Of course, this is partly because English uses the adjective 'hot' to refer to many different conditions, for which most other languages require at least four different words.

In any case, cinnamon bark is cheap and plentiful in Dubai, so I bought some and put a stick into a teapot and covered it with boiling water. The result tasted like hot water.

I then tried crushing the bark, putting it into a teapot, and covering it with boiling water. Slightly better, but still not at all like what I'd had in the tent.

I tried the Internet, but all I could find was: 'Take a tea bag and make tea as usual, then sprinkle with cinnamon powder.' Not, I think, any resemblance to what I'd had in the tent.

In desperation, I asked an Arab friend. 'Habibi,' he said, 'my mother used to make that for us. She would simmer the cinnamon for three days before it was ready.'

I still don't know exactly how much cinnamon and water to use, or if the tea uses other ingredients, but I now have an idea that the cinnamon must be simmered in water for a rather long time to produce proper tea.

And I'm still convinced it's an excellent drink for the cooler months.