ripe guavas simmered and sieved into a thick, fragrant, pale nectar, sweetened and served ice-cold in summer or warm in winter, one of the most beloved of all Egyptian fruit juices
Origin: Egypt
From the journey of Guava.
Egypt is one of the great guava-growing countries, and there the fruit (gawafa) is loved above all as a juice. Asir gawafa, guava nectar, is a thick, fragrant, pale-cream drink made by simmering ripe guavas and pressing them through a sieve, then sweetening the perfumed purée and letting it down to a nectar that is poured from the juice bars of Cairo and Alexandria alongside the sugarcane juice (asab), the tamarind, and the hibiscus. It is drunk two ways, and the Egyptian winter way is the distinctive one: served ice-cold and refreshing through the long hot summer, but also, in the cold months, warmed and drunk hot as a soothing folk remedy for coughs, sore throats, and winter chills, sometimes thickened a little and spiced. Heady with the scent of the ripe fruit and a beautiful soft colour, asir gawafa is one of the most characteristic of all Egyptian drinks, a New World fruit so at home on the Nile that it feels native, and a fixture of the Egyptian juice bar and the Ramadan table alike.
Egyptian asir gawafa is characteristically thick and creamy-pale; some make it with a little milk for extra richness. Strain well to remove the hard seeds. The same nectar is bottled and sold commercially across Egypt and the Arab world. It belongs to the great Egyptian repertoire of fresh juices (asab/sugarcane, tamr hindi/tamarind, karkadeh/hibiscus, sobia).
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