Ritual Drink · Foamed Tea
Shai Libi (Libyan Tea)
📷 Closely related photo — Photo via Pexels/Unsplash — free for commercial use
Libyan tea is judged a failure if it arrives without a thick foam on top — vendors build that foam by pouring the tea cup-to-cup, held an arm's length apart, three times over.
Strong black tea is boiled down in a small stovetop kettle, sweetened heavily, then poured back and forth between glass and kettle from a height until a thick tan foam sits on top. Street kiosks and home stalls in Tripoli serve it in small glass cups, usually in three rounds, with the final round often accompanied by boiled peanuts or almonds.
Why it's made this way: The high pour, called reghwa, aerates the tea into foam and traces back to Sahrawi and Bedouin desert practice, where the froth trapped windblown sand so it could be skimmed off before drinking.
Roughly what's in it
70kcal
1gprotein
16gcarbs
0gfat
Estimated per typical street-vendor portion — not lab-tested.
More from Libya
Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries.
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