the saffron rock sugar of the Persian tea table: a supersaturated syrup left undisturbed for a week to grow large yellow crystals along a thread or a stick, stirred slowly into a glass of black tea
Origin: Iran
From the journey of Sugar Cane.
Persia received sugar cane from India under the Sasanians and made refining into an art, and the country still takes its sugar in forms that the rest of the world abandoned centuries ago. Tea is drunk qand pahlu, beside the sugar: a lump of hard loaf sugar is held between the teeth and the tea drawn through it, so the sweetness is in the mouth rather than the glass. And beside the tea stands nabāt, rock sugar grown into large clear crystals along a length of cotton thread or a wooden stick, almost always coloured and scented a deep yellow with saffron, which is swirled slowly in the hot tea until as much has dissolved as the drinker wants. It is a household remedy as much as a sweetener, given for an unsettled stomach, for nausea, and to a woman after childbirth, and a jar of the sticks stands in most Iranian kitchens; nabāt water, a crystal dissolved in warm water with a little rosewater, is what a sick child is given. The technique is straightforward crystallisation, the same as the medieval refiners used to purify sugar, and its only real requirement is patience, since the crystals grow slowly and must not be disturbed while they do.
Nabat keeps indefinitely in a dry jar. The saffron is traditional but optional; plain nabat is clear and colourless, and Iranian shops also sell it flavoured with cardamom or, less traditionally, with cinnamon. It is stirred into black tea rather than dissolved beforehand, and part of the pleasure is that the sweetness increases as the glass goes down. Beyond tea, dissolve a crystal in warm water with a spoonful of rosewater as the standard Iranian settling drink for indigestion or nausea. Do not confuse rock sugar with the Chinese bīngtáng, which is grown by the same method but usually left plain and used as a cooking sugar rather than a table one, or with sugar loaf (qand), which is cast in a mould rather than crystallised on a thread.
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