Zobo drink is a Nigerian beverage
made from dried Roselle plant flowers. The drink is also known as Roselle
drink and called Sorrel drink in the
Carribean.


Zobo has a sour taste so it can clash
with sugars. This why I prefer to keep
my Zobo drink as natural as possible
hence I use only natural ingredients
when preparing the drink. You may
add artificial flavours and sweeteners such as Nutri-C and sugar if you wish.



Ingredients for Nigerian Zobo drink
The following are what I used to make
5 litres of Zobo drink. You can get
more with the same quantity of
ingredients depending on the
concentration you want. If you will be
using artificial flavours, you need to add more water.




2 De Rica* cups of dry Zobo leaves
1 glove of garlic
1 big piece of ginger
1 big very ripe pineapple
Enough water




* In Nigeria, when we use up the tomato paste in the 850g tin of any
brand of tomato paste, we wash the
tin and use it for measuring food items
and ingredients. This measuring cup is
fondly called De Rica cup because it is
the most popular brand of tomato paste.


To garnish: Fell free to add any sliced citrus fruits
of your choice: orange, lemon, lime. Before you make the Zobo drink
1. Wash the dry Zobo leaves
repeatedly in cold water. Zobo
leaves are usually very dusty so
make sure you wash off all the
dust. It will seem like all the
flavours/colour of the zobo are being washed off but don't
worry, you will see that the dry
zobo leaves still have a lot of the
colour intact when you start
boiling it.
2. Wash, peel and cut the pineapple
into thin slices. Some people add
the peel of the pineapple when
making the zobo drink but I
don't do this simple because I
always think that dirt is stuck in the peels of pineapples 3. Peel and cut the ginger and garlic
into tiny pieces.




Directions for making the Zobo
drink
1. Put the washed zobo leaves into
a deep pot.
2. Add the pineapples and pour
enough water to cover the
contents of the pot and then
some. 3. Start cooking at medium to high
heat and let it boil for 5 minutes. 4. Add the ginger and the garlic,
add more water and keep
boiling for at least 30 minutes.
This is the time it will take for the
zobo leaves to be completely soft
and the pineapples tender.
5. Turn off the heat and set aside to
cool down completely.
6. When cool, wringe out the juice
from the pineapples and zobo
leaves, leaving only the zobo
juice in the pot.
7. Pour the juice through a sieve to
take out the remaining large
particles then pour it through a
chiffon cloth to remove the tiniest
particles.
8. Add any artificial flavours of your
choice at this time and stir.
9. Pour into bottles and refrigerate. Serve with ice and garnishing. Enjoy it
on a hot sunny day with any Nigerian snack.

I am soo loving my zobo drink