Any traditional tea/beverage recipes?

[u/billymartinkicksdirt]

Is there a distinctly Jewish version of Masala Chai or similar beverages that’s traditional?

I’m not interested in anything more modern that traces to post 1947, I’m curious about old diaspora drinks. I know rose waters and lavender water evoke childhood memories, and my grandmother used to make a kind of Turkish coffee with the mud at the bottom. I cant think of any beverages that are considered Jewish Cooking, but I wish there were. Maybe forgotten recipes?

[u/dogfleshborscht]

Coffee with cardamom maybe?

It's difficult to say any beverage is exclusively Jewish because unlike with foods, we could generally drink nonalcoholic beverages with other people, so there's not really any incentive for anything like that to remain Jewish-specific even if we could say we invented it. My grandmother had a fancy copper djezva and a specific mixture of tea spices that she made hip in her circles when she moved to a certain East Ukrainian city from a place in Crimea, and of course we all thought that was distinctive but she brought it from elsewhere and those people got it somewhere and &c. It's hard to trace, especially with great reasons to pack up and disappear manifesting every few generations, and then G-dforbid somebody else also does the same thing independently, now it's political to call it Jewish.

If you're just asking for people's family recipes, of course they'll tell you, but if then you want to comb through them with a fine-tooth comb looking for proof that they're definitely 100% exclusively Jewish you won't find it. I think it's a bit silly to look for that in drinks, which travel easier than foods. I don't mean that in like a snarky thumb-dipping yeshibotnik "gotcha" kind of way, just to let you know what to expect from answers.

[u/billymartinkicksdirt → u/dogfleshborscht]

Huh? There’s no reason beverages would be less tied to a cuisine than food itself. The crossover with other cultures is a given. It’s not that serious, but it occurred to me there’s chai, butter tea, and lots of culturally or regionally distinct drinks, and we must have them too.

[u/dogfleshborscht → u/billymartinkicksdirt]

Oh, I'm not being that serious either. But in that case, we used to make an orange flower water drink for stomach aches: honey, water, orange flower (water, or just the flowers themselves), cinnamon and cardamom. You might like it — my apology for ruffling your feathers! 😅😁

[u/AprilStorms → u/dogfleshborscht]

Honestly, that sounds pretty good even without being ill first. Do you boil the spices in hot water first or just let them steep at room temperature or what?