Sibu Tales : Floral and Hibiscus Teas

Several years ago, the market in Sibu started to sell the ribena flower and it started a craze for healthy drinks. We started making ribena jelly, ribena juices and even ribena cake. This flower is actually the red roseelle. Women fell over each other to grow as many as possible. The MYFers also drank a lot of roselle tea, and Sun Valley drinks were set aside.




Not long after that, the newspapers started to spread lots of articles about hibiscus tea and cinnamon tea, and any tea that could be made from plants in our own backyard.

In fact according to the health articles, people round the world use various parts of the hibiscus plant as food and medicine. 

My teacher trainer friend told me that her mother had used hibiscus flowers to soften her hair. Perhaps that is why she has very luxuriant long hair all her life!

The hibiscus tea is popular in the western world.

My mother often laughed at what she read in the papers and she would use her Foochow quote in reflectionm " A season of Onion, followed by a season of chives" to mean that trends come and go...like seasons. She was adamant that simple food, eaten in small portions, was best for health. In my eyes, my mum has  never  been overly stressed and pressed by trends. She did not bow down at peer pressure.