Café Touba is acoffee beverage that is a popular traditional drink fromSenegal that is (more recently) also consumed inGuinea-Bissau, and is named for the city ofTouba, Senegal.
Café Touba is acoffee drink that is flavored withgrains of Selim or Guinea pepper (the dried fruit of the shrubXylopia aethiopica)[1] (locally known asdjar, in theWolof language) and sometimescloves. The addition ofdjar, that is cultivated inTouba, is the important factor differentiatingcafé Touba from plain coffee. The spices are mixed and roasted withcoffee beans, then ground into a powder. The drink is prepared using afilter, in a manner similar to that used to preparedrip coffee.
Café Touba (French for 'Touba coffee') is named for the city ofTouba, Senegal (Hassaniya ArabicṬūbā, 'Felicity'). The drink is traditionally consumed by theIslamicMouride brotherhood as it came to Senegal when the brotherhood's founder,SheikhAmadou Bamba Mbacké, returned from exile in Gabon in 1902.[1][2] The drink is served during ceremonies, commemorations, and during theGrand Magal of Touba.[3]
The coffee-to-djar ratio is typically around 80 percent coffee to 20 percentdjar. In recent years, consumption ofcafé Touba has been increasing as the drink is spreading to cities of all faiths, both in and outside Senegal.[4] TheWorld Bank wrote that a progressive elimination of imported coffee seems common in poorer areas of Senegal as a result of theglobal recession of 2009: a Senegalese restaurant owner stated, "We weren't used to consume [sic] the Tuba Coffee for breakfast, but since the crisis people drink it a lot, also children."[5] Commercial export outside Senegal, while small, is present.[6] InGuinea-Bissau,café Touba has become the country's most popular drink, even though it was relatively unknown several years ago.[7] Consumption ofcafé Touba increased to the point that sales ofinstant coffee, most notablyNescafé, decreased inWest Africa. To more directly compete withcafé Touba,Nestlé launched a product that contains spices, called Nescafé Ginger & Spice.[8]
