Human Flower Project

Bottoms Up—Hibiscus

One of the showiest garden flowers shows up in Caribbean ice pitchers, in Asian kitchens, and now in Tanzanian “jerricans,” as wine

Hibiscus sabdariffa, specimen
Photo: Swedish Museum
of Natural History

To be a rural woman in Tanzania, you don’t get any breaks in the business world.  Hilda Mwesiga apparently didn’t need a break, just solidarity, chutzpa and hibiscus.

“In rural areas, where women come together in times of happiness and sadness, we felt that we needed to start up an economic activity to help us earn a living. So we formed a group and learnt how to process wine,” Mwesiga said.

A retired nurse, Mwesiga began making wine from roselle, the local hibiscus flower, and has now joined forces with other women of Bukoba, her community, to produce over 120 litres each week.  The wine sells for 1200 Tanzania sh. per bottle (about $1.07 USD) but people who can’t afford that much “buy her wine in containers and jerrycans. (Mwesiga) plans to expand her market as the East African Union market grows.”

Calyxes of hibiscus
Photo: Phuket Jet Tour

This excellent webpage from Purdue University offers encyclopedic detail about Hibiscus sabdariffa. “The Flemish botanist, M. de L’Obel, published his observations of the plant in 1576, and the edibility of the leaves was recorded in Java in 1687. Seeds are said to have been brought to the New World by African slaves.”

In the Caribbean, where hibiscus grows abundantly, the flower combined with ginger is a popular tea. Tantalizing, here is Carol Bareuther’s tea recipe from the island of St. Thomas.

In Mexico “flor de Jamaica” (actually the dried calyxes) can be found at most local markets. A Mexican restaurant outside D.C. offers a “chayote (tropical squash) salad accessorized with crumbled cheese, peanuts and a sharp red dressing of hibiscus flower and onion.” (We’re working on getting that recipe, folks.) The Purdue horticulturists also note that in Africa, hibiscus calyxes “are frequently cooked as a side-dish eaten with pulverized peanuts.”

Ready to imbibe: Nile Valley “Hibiscus Mint Tea”
Photo: JT65b4b

The national beverage of Texas may have once been Lone Star Beer, but the municipal drink of Austin, the state capitol, is hibiscus tea. Awad Abdelgadir’s Nile Valley Teas, a company based not on the Nile but the Colorado River, has made the music capitol ruby-throated, and also benefits Awad’s hometown in the Sudan. (In Egypt hibiscus tea, known as Karkade, is enormously popular.) Hot or cold, it’s delicious and, like cranberry juice, awakeningly tangy. If you’d like another endorsement, see what this blogger-skeptic has to show and tell.

Hibiscus tea is also brewed and drunk in Asia, though these recipes tend to skip the Caribbean’s ginger. The flower also makes a preserve, like cranberry, especially good for livening up poultry dishes.

We look forward to hearing how the Tanzanian women’s enterprise with hibiscus “spirits” develops. And we recommend that the company sell its wine with a roselle-tea “chaser.” In Guatemala, an infusion of roselle flowers is a popular hangover cure: pink hair of the pink dog.

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