Herbal Infusion · Sahel Bush Tea
Kinkeliba
Photo: T.K. Naliaka / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Its Wolof nickname roughly translates to 'the tree that makes you live long,' yet it contains no caffeine at all despite functioning as an everyday tea.
Dried leaves from the wild Combretum micranthum shrub, gathered in bundles across the Sahel scrubland around Saint-Louis, are boiled into an earthy, faintly nutty infusion. Vendors sell the dried bundles bound with straw at markets, and the brewed tea itself from streetside kettles.
Why it's made this way: The shrub grows wild across the semi-arid Sahel country north of Saint-Louis, and generations of herders and farmers there have relied on it as a caffeine-free daily drink believed to aid digestion.
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