Soothing stuff

[ladymoth]

I was very honoured to be asked to dinner by my Saudi neighbours last week, and was served Arabic coffee, which is heavily laced with cardamom.

It tastes very odd, like cough mixture, but they only pour a few teaspoons at a time, so it was surprisingly easy to drink - especially with the accompanying dates.

The food was very good, too - chicken with rice and tabbouleh, all beautifully seasoned and delicately spiced.

I felt so relaxed and comfortable afterwards, and wondered if it was the cardamom coffee. 'cos no alcohol was served.

My neighbour told me "Old peoples are drinking this always for the stiff legs" Well, her English is a lot better than my Arabic!

I am going to see if Whittards stock this coffee, because I would like to see if it works again - it's worth a try, and will make a change from Horlicks.

(I must add that I'm not looking for a magical herbal cure - just something soothing and comforting)

I will report back - watch this space!

Moffy (international super coffee spy)

[Hidden]

Let me know how you get on super spy.....

Ps how do you spy with creaky legs don't they give you away especially when the give way....

Ahh a instead of international super spy you should have put horizontal super spy....

Your evil friend

VG

[Fibrofoggiest]

Ooooowww lead me to it You and all your super sleuthing hehehe, Moffy the world wide diplomat on a mission..........fiendishly fine fibro fighter finder (try saying that quickly after a couple of your coffees )

Yours equally fiendishly Foggy x

[ladymoth]

Fiendy fin figgy furgy FFS!

[Jjudith]

Oh lucky you having Saudi Arabian neighbours! I just fell in love with the Arab world when I first went to live and work in the Middle East, first Lebanon and then Yemen, and I speak Arabic in Yemeni dialect (badly!) so I would love to be able to practice it. Arabian people are so hospitable and so much maligned in our press; I guess that just being part of that lovely hospitality will be soothing and healing in itself - I am envious. Relating to Arabian coffee, as an alternative in Yemen they use honey from the Dou'an Valley in Hadramaut, it is very expensive, its a monoculture honey from the Sitr tree and they eat it with black seeds, I wonder if they are poppy seeds of some sort. Also coffee originates from Yemen, hence the name Mocha coffee because they always exported it via a port called Mocha on the Red Sea and Yemen controlled the world market until someone sneaked out some plants and started growing it in Asia. I think you can buy Yemeni coffee on line and you can also buy Cardoman anywhere, Arabs always put it with coffee and usually make the coffee very weak so that it is coloured the same as tea if it is Arabian style, or very strong if it is Turkish style. So I am sure you can make it yourself.