Kashmiri Kahwa

In a Srinagar kitchen the samovar sits low on the floor — a brass pot with a fire chamber running up its middle, live coals dropped in from the top. The water around that chamber never quite boils. It ticks and murmurs all evening. When the cup finally comes to you the surface is pale gold with a thread of orange where the saffron has bled, cinnamon rises with the steam, and two or three slivers of almond turn slowly at the bottom. You drink it in small mouthfuls because it is too hot to hurry, and by the third cup the cinnamon has settled at the back of your throat.

Kahwa has always been sweetened with mishri, and there is a reason it was never plain sugar. This is a thin, clear tea. Everything it has sits in the saffron and the cinnamon, and a hard sweetness flattens both. Our Organic Dhaga Mishri is crystallised on cotton threads over eight to ten days, which is why a thread runs through the middle of a crystal. Crushed coarse it goes into the hot kahwa and dissolves in about thirty seconds of stirring, and it sweetens from underneath — the saffron still arrives first, the cinnamon still lingers, and the sweetness only closes the sip.

The one thing that decides whether kahwa comes out right is heat. Green tea leaves boiled in water go grey and bitter and no amount of saffron rescues them. Simmer the whole spices first, pull the pan off the flame, wait half a minute for the bubbling to stop, and only then drop in the leaves. Two to three minutes of steeping, then strain. That single pause is the difference between a kahwa that smells of a spice box and one that tastes like stewed tea.

How to make it

1. Crack the cinnamon into two or three pieces and press the cardamom pods open with the flat of a knife so the black seeds show.
2. Put the water, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves in a pan. Bring to a boil, then lower the flame and simmer uncovered for 3 minutes. The water will smell of cinnamon and turn very faintly straw-coloured.
3. Take the pan off the flame and wait about 30 seconds, until the water stops moving. It should be hot but no longer bubbling.
4. Add the green tea leaves and the rose petals. Cover and steep for 2 to 3 minutes, no longer.
5. Add the crushed mishri and stir for about half a minute until you cannot feel any grain against the base of the pan.
6. Put 3 to 4 saffron strands and a few almond slivers into the bottom of each cup.
7. Strain the kahwa into the cups, pouring from a little height so the saffron swirls and starts giving up its colour.
8. Let it stand for a minute, then serve hot. Eat the softened almonds at the end.

Tips

• Never boil the leaves. Water at a rolling boil pulls tannin out of green tea and turns it grey and sharp. Off the flame, 30 seconds' wait, then the leaves.
• Crush the mishri just before you use it. Pull out any bit of cotton thread, put the crystals in a small steel katori, and press with the base of a second katori. Coarse grains are enough for a hot drink.
• Saffron belongs in the cup, not the pan. Boiled saffron loses its scent. Put the strands in the cup and let the hot kahwa bloom them.
• Keep a spice mix ready. Crack a week's worth of cinnamon, cardamom and cloves into a small jar. Kahwa then takes eight minutes on a winter evening.
• Second cup from the same pan. Kashmiri households top the samovar up through the evening. If you want that, keep the strained spices in the pan and add fresh water and tea for a lighter second brew.