Tea during a fast
Two entirely different questions share this phrase: a very old one about what is poured when a fast ends, which has specific and well-recorded answers, and a very new one about whether a drink counts, which is not answered here.
What this page answers, and what it does not
This page records what is poured at either end of a fast in several named traditions, and how a fast that works by subtraction changes a drink rather than replacing it. It does not answer whether any drink breaks a fast, or what going without food does to anybody: the first is not a question about plants and the second is not one TeaHQ has assessed. The nearest adjacent question TeaHQ has written on, fluid intake, is held pending human review.
TeaHQ's assessment is written and held pending human review. Every plant listed below is listed with the reason it is associated with this search. None of those reasons is a finding about what it does.
What people mean by this
The older question is about the meals at either end of a fast rather than about the fast itself, and its answers are precise enough to be worth writing down. In Egypt the iftar table carries karkade and tamarind, and in Ramadan particularly erk sous, poured cold by street vendors from ornate brass vessels carried on the back. In the Gulf the qahwa is cardamom-heavy and served in small handleless cups in a fixed order. In Morocco the pot of mint tea arrives beside harira rather than after it. In Turkey the tea comes after the meal and then continues for hours. Christian fasting periods in the Orthodox tradition work by subtraction instead, and the rule against dairy changes a drink rather than replacing it — tea without milk is a different object in a culture that assumes milk. The newer question comes out of the intermittent-fasting literature and asks whether an unsweetened drink breaks a fast. That is physiological, it is why most people arrive here, and it is the one thing on this page TeaHQ will not take up.
What appears under this search, and why
Traditional practice
A named tradition uses it this way. That is a record of what people do, not evidence that it has an effect.
Erk sous is poured cold from an ornate brass vessel the vendor carries, and the pouring and the costume are as much of the trade as the drink is. Its association with Ramadan in Egypt is specific rather than general.
Recorded by: Egyptian street-vendor practice, in which erk sous is particularly associated with Ramadan
Karkade is a fixed item on an Egyptian and Sudanese table rather than one option among many, taken hot in winter and iced in summer, and made in quantity rather than by the glass.
Recorded by: Egyptian and Sudanese household practice, where it is an everyday drink rather than a seasonal speciality
Kharrub syrup and cold carob drinks are sold across the Levant and particularly during Ramadan; Cyprus boils the same pods into a molasses, and the cocoa-substitute business is an unrelated twentieth-century development.
Recorded by: Levantine practice, where the cold kharrub drink is a seasonal street trade, and Cypriot and Maltese practice with the same pod
Crushed pods define Arabian qahwa rather than seasoning it, and the pouring order and the small handleless cup are as fixed as the recipe. Guatemala became the largest producer in the twentieth century after German plantation introductions.
Recorded by: Arabian and Gulf qahwa practice, where the spice is a defining rather than incidental ingredient
Poured from height with gunpowder green and a great deal of sugar, and served alongside harira during Ramadan rather than as a course after it.
Recorded by: Maghrebi household and hospitality practice across Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia
Helba is drunk hot and sweetened, sometimes with milk, across Egypt, Yemen and the Gulf, from a seed most people already recognise by smell from curry powder and maple syrup.
Recorded by: Egyptian, Yemeni and Gulf household practice
Powdered tea reached Japan with the monk Eisai around 1191 and survived in monastic use there after the practice lapsed in China; monastic routine, including its abstinences, is the setting it grew up inside.
Recorded by: Japanese Zen monastic practice, from which the tea ceremony developed over the following centuries
Everyday habit
An everyday habit rather than a formal tradition. Recorded because it explains why the association exists.
Tamr hindi is made by dissolving the sour pulp in water and sweetening it, and it appears on Ramadan tables across Egypt and the Levant; the identical preparation is agua de tamarindo in Mexico.
Comes after the meal rather than with it and then continues for hours, which in a country with the highest per-head consumption in the world makes the after-iftar round a substantial part of the evening.
Yulmu-cha is thick enough to be a light meal in itself, which places a grain drink of that weight in a different position at either end of a fast from any infusion.
What is in the leaf
A fact about what the leaf contains. It describes the tea, and makes no statement about any person drinking it.
Roasted barley, a cereal grain rather than a leaf, with no caffeine and no sugar unless somebody adds it — the plainest thing on this page and the one that alters a meal least.
How the market serves this search
Two markets serve this query and they do not overlap. The seasonal one is enormous and almost invisible outside the regions it belongs to: Ramadan drink production — hibiscus, tamarind, carob, liquorice, dried apricot sheet — is a scheduled annual trade with its own supply chains and its own street vendors, and very little of it reaches a Western tea aisle. The other is the intermittent-fasting market, which sells nothing much: the products in it are ordinary unsweetened teas and black coffees repositioned by a claim about counting, and the claim rather than the contents is what is being bought.
Description of a market, not endorsement of it. TeaHQ sells nothing and links to no seller.
Caffeine, as a fact about the leaf
Liquorice, hibiscus, tamarind, carob, cardamom, spearmint, fenugreek, roasted barley and Job’s tears are all plants other than Camellia sinensis and none contains caffeine. Turkish çay and matcha are made from the tea plant and do; matcha is the case where the milled leaf is swallowed rather than strained away, so nothing is left behind in a strainer.
Related guides
The traditions behind these plants
Each line above says in a sentence why a plant appears under this search. These records say who practises the tradition, where, in what period, in what preparation, and what that tradition itself states the practice is for — one tradition at a time, because they frequently disagree with each other.
- Liquorice root: traditional use (4 traditions)
- Hibiscus: traditional use (4 traditions)
- Cardamom: traditional use (3 traditions)
- Spearmint: traditional use (3 traditions)
General information about practice and terminology, not health advice and not a recommendation. TeaHQ does not publish assessments of what tea does to a person until a named human has taken accountability for them.
After eating
Four phrasings of one occasion. This is the oldest and best-attested cluster of drinking traditions in the section, and also the one where the marketing vocabulary is furthest from what the traditions actually say.