Spice Blend
A spice blend is a premixed combination of ground or whole spices, sometimes with herbs, dried citrus peel or dried fruit, prepared ahead so that a recurring flavoring can be added in one step. Its composition varies by tradition and recipe. In beverages, blends flavor hot tea, coffee, mulled wine, cider and juice, and their alcohol-free counterparts.
How spice blend is prepared
Blends are simmered in water or milk as a decoction, steeped in heated wine, cider or juice, brewed with coffee or tea, or turned into syrups and concentrates. Familiar examples include tea masala for masala chai, hawaij for Yemeni coffee, mulling spices for spiced wine, glögg and hot cider, and pumpkin pie spice for seasonal coffee and milk drinks.
Cooking ingredients in liquid over time.
The product page describes two hours of oven stewing for the cherry and spice mixture.[7]
Service signal Works as a other component.
Other preparations
A spice and black tea blend supplies tannin. The exact spice mixture and brewing method are not specified.[8]
Service signal Works as a other component.
In depth
Ancient and medieval spiced wine
Combining several spices to flavor a drink is an old practice in Europe. A spiced, warmed wine appears in a Roman comedy by Plautus from the second century BC. As Roman viticulture spread north toward the Rhine and Danube, recipes for flavoring wine traveled with it. By the late Middle Ages, English cooks were grinding imported spices together to make hippocras, a sweetened spiced wine. A cookery manuscript of 1390 calls for cinnamon, ginger, galangal, cloves, long pepper, nutmeg, cardamom, grains of paradise and marjoram, ground and mixed with red wine and sugar. In these recipes the spice blend served as a prestige ingredient as well as a flavoring, since imported spices were costly.[1]
Yemen: hawaij for coffee and tea
In Yemen, where coffee drinking took hold early, a family of ground spice mixtures called hawaij is made in two main forms. One is savory, for soups and stews. The other is meant for brewing coffee. The coffee version is typically built on aniseed, fennel seed, ginger and cardamom. In Aden, cooks combine ginger, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon for black coffee, and leave out the ginger when the blend goes into tea. Yemenite Jewish communities brought hawaij to Israel, and from there it has spread into wider Israeli kitchens and coffee habits.[2]
Qishr and ginger coffee
Yemen also has qishr, a hot drink made by brewing dried coffee husks with ginger and sometimes cinnamon. Because it needs no roasting, it has long served as an everyday alternative to bean coffee. Accounts from nineteenth- and twentieth-century travelers describe households in coffee-growing districts offering guests ginger coffee or husk infusions rather than brewed beans. Qishr shows how a small, simple spice mix can define a whole category of low-stimulant, alcohol-free hospitality drinks.[3]
Mulling spices in Britain and northern Europe
In Britain, spiced wine evolved into a domestic winter custom. Victorian household manuals advised boiling cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon or mace in water before adding wine and sugar. Wassail, a hot spiced ale or cider, was drunk in the same season. In German-speaking lands, Glühwein is spiced with cinnamon, cloves, star anise, orange and sometimes vanilla. In the Nordic countries, glögg uses cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and bitter orange, and ready-mixed glögg spices and extracts are sold in ordinary groceries. Both traditions have alcohol-free forms. Children at Christmas markets drink Kinderpunsch, a spiced fruit punch, and glögg is commonly made with blackcurrant or other berry juice in place of wine. In Russia, sbiten is a honeyed, spiced hot drink that is usually non-alcoholic.[1]
India: tea masala and masala chai
The best-known beverage spice blend today is the masala added to Indian tea. Black tea became a mass drink in India only in the early twentieth century, when an industry campaign promoted tea breaks and supported vendors along the railways. Independent chai sellers began boiling the leaves with plenty of milk, sugar and spices. The industry at first frowned on this practice because it used less tea per cup, but spiced chai won out. A typical tea masala includes cardamom, ginger and cinnamon, often with cloves, black pepper, star anise or lemongrass. The mix is simmered with water and milk before the tea is added and the brew strained. Recipes shift by region and family. Western Indian versions often skip cloves and pepper, and Kashmiri pink tea is made with green tea, a gentle spice mix and salt.[4]
Spiced tea travels: the Gulf, Africa and the West
Migration carried spiced milk tea well beyond South Asia. South Asian communities made it a staple in the Gulf states, where it is known as karak chai. It is also widely drunk in East Africa and the Caribbean. In North America and Europe, spiced tea became a coffeehouse menu item from the 1990s, usually called a chai latte. These versions are commonly made from a sweetened spice-and-tea concentrate or syrup mixed with steamed milk, sometimes with espresso added, a combination known as a dirty chai. Packaged chai spice blends and concentrates now let the drink be made at home or in cafés without simmering whole spices.[4]
North America: mulled cider and pumpkin spice
In the United States and Canada, fresh unfiltered apple juice, sold as apple cider, is a seasonal autumn product. It is often heated just short of boiling with cinnamon, orange peel, nutmeg and cloves to make hot mulled cider, an alcohol-free cousin of wassail served at Halloween, Thanksgiving and winter holidays. A related North American blend, pumpkin pie spice, combines cinnamon, clove, ginger, nutmeg and allspice. It began as a baking mix and has since become a fixture of seasonal coffee and milk drinks.[5]
Spice blends in contemporary no- and low-alcohol drinks
Premixed blends are now sold ready-made almost everywhere, from masalas and hawaij to mulling spices that combine cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg and dried fruit. This convenience has helped spiced drinks move easily between alcoholic and alcohol-free forms. The same mulling sachet can flavor wine, juice or cider. A chai blend can become a syrup for sodas or iced tea. Coffee spice mixes appear in cold brews and dessert drinks. Producers and home makers of no- and low-alcohol beverages value these blends because they supply warmth, aroma and a sense of body that might otherwise come from alcohol.[6]
References
- [1]EncyclopediaMulled wine — Wikipedia↑§1↑§4
- [2]EncyclopediaHawaij — Wikipedia↑§2
- [3]EncyclopediaQishr — Wikipedia↑§3
- [4]EncyclopediaMasala chai — Wikipedia↑§5↑§6
- [5]EncyclopediaApple cider — Wikipedia↑§7
- [6]EncyclopediaSpice mix — Wikipedia↑§8
- [7]Producerhttps://www.non.world/products/stewed-cherry-coffee↑prepared
- [8]Producerhttps://www.non.world/products/caramelised-pear-kombu↑prepared