Sulaimani Chai: The Black Spiced Lemon Tea of Malabar
Sulaimani is black tea with no milk, a squeeze of lemon and a handful of warm spices, drunk in Malabar homes and Gulf majlises after a big meal. It is sharp, sweet, clear and faintly perfumed, and it takes eight minutes.
At a glance
- Makes: 2 cups (about 400 ml)
- Takes: 8 minutes
- Traditionally drunk: after biryani or a heavy mutton meal, late afternoon with guests, and through the evenings of Ramadan
- Go easy if: you get reflux, you are watching caffeine, or you are drinking it on an empty stomach
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Where sulaimani comes from
Sulaimani is the tea of the Malabar coast, Kozhikode and Kannur and Thalassery in particular, and it travels the old trade route across to the Gulf, where you will be handed a small glass of it in Dubai or Muscat without asking. The name is usually traced back to Arabic, and the drink itself sits exactly where you would expect an Arab-Malayali trade route drink to sit: black tea from the hills, lemon, cardamom, clove, sometimes a thread of mint.
Its cultural job is specific. Sulaimani comes at the end of the meal, particularly after biryani or a mutton feast, and particularly at a wedding or a Ramadan iftar. It is what you drink instead of milk tea when your stomach is already full of ghee and rice. In Kerala Muslim households it is also the everyday four o’clock tea, served in small glasses, hot enough that you hold the rim.
People have long drunk it after heavy food because it is light, hot, unmilky and a little sour, which is a combination that feels right when you are full. That is the honest version. It is a good drink at the right moment, not a fix for overeating.
What goes in
Sulaimani is short, but everything in it matters. Use a strong black tea. In Kerala it is dust-grade or CTC tea from the local estates, which gives you colour fast. Darjeeling is too delicate. Assam CTC or a good strong Ceylon works well.
| Ingredient | Amount | Why it’s there |
|---|---|---|
| Water | 450 ml | The base, no milk ever |
| Strong black tea (CTC or dust) | 3 g (about 1 heaped tsp) | Colour and body |
| Green cardamom pods | 3, lightly crushed | The signature aroma |
| Cloves | 2 whole | Depth and a little heat, easy to overdo |
| Cinnamon or cassia | 1 piece about 2 cm | Sweet warmth at the back |
| Lemon juice | 2 tsp (about 10 ml), fresh | The sharpness that defines it |
| Sugar or jaggery | 2 tsp sugar, or 8 g jaggery | Balances the lemon, jaggery gives a molasses edge |
| Mint leaves (optional) | 4 fresh leaves | A Gulf touch, not universal in Kerala |
| Lemon slice to serve | 1 thin round | Aroma in the glass and it looks right |
The method
The only real technique here is the order. Spices and water first, tea second, sugar third, lemon last and off the heat. Lemon juice that goes into boiling tea turns dull and slightly bitter, and it can make the tea cloudy. Put it in at the end and the whole glass smells of lemon.
- Crush 3 cardamom pods lightly so the husks split. Leave the 2 cloves and the 2 cm cinnamon whole.
- Bring 450 ml of water to the boil with the cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. Once boiling, reduce to a gentle simmer and hold it there for 3 minutes. The water should be pale gold and smell of cardamom before any tea goes in.
- Turn off the heat. Add 3 g of black tea. Cover and steep for 3 minutes exactly. CTC and dust grades extract fast, so this is long enough for a deep amber colour. Longer and you get harshness.
- Stir in the sugar or jaggery while the tea is still in the pan, and let it dissolve fully. Jaggery takes a little longer and wants a stir.
- Strain through a fine sieve into a jug. Get all the leaf out.
- Now, off the heat and once the tea has stopped steaming furiously (roughly 80°C, about a minute after straining), stir in the 2 tsp of lemon juice. Taste. Add a half teaspoon more if your lemon is mild.
- Pour into two glasses from a height so it froths a little, which is how it is served in Kerala tea shops. Float a thin lemon round on each. If you are using mint, bruise a leaf between your fingers and drop it in now.
The lemon goes in off the boil, always, or you have made something else entirely.
Variations people actually make
Jaggery instead of sugar is common in older Kerala kitchens and gives a darker, rounder cup with a faint caramel note. Some families add a very thin slice of fresh ginger to the spice water, which pushes it towards a Gulf style. A strip of dried lime, the black loomi used across the Gulf, is a serious variation and worth trying once: use a quarter of one, cracked, simmered with the spices.
Mint is normal in the Gulf and rare in Kerala. Star anise turns up occasionally but takes over quickly, so a quarter of a star at most. Honey instead of sugar works, stirred in after the lemon.
Some people make a weak version, almost a spiced lemon water with a hint of tea, for late evening. That is a sensible thing to do if you want the flavour without much caffeine.
In Malabar tea shops the tea is pulled between two vessels before serving, the same theatre as a milk chai, which cools it to drinking temperature and puts a head of froth on it. There is a practical reason underneath the show: a glass of tea that arrives at exactly the right heat gets drunk, and nobody stands around blowing on it. Try pouring back and forth twice between two jugs before you serve.
Common mistakes
Adding lemon to the pan while it is on the heat. It flattens the flavour and clouds the tea. Off the heat, in the jug, every time.
Boiling the tea leaf. Sulaimani is not a decoction like milk chai. The leaf goes into hot water off the flame and steeps.
Too many cloves. Two is the number. Four and you have a mouthful of dentist.
Weak tea. If your cup looks like watery lemon squash, use a stronger grade of leaf rather than steeping longer. Colour should come from the tea, not from time.
Bottled lemon juice. It tastes of the bottle. This drink is three quarters aroma and it will show.
How much, how often
A traditional serving is a small glass, about 150 ml, and the normal pattern is one after a big meal, or one in the late afternoon with company. As an everyday habit, one or two glasses a day is unremarkable for adults who already drink tea.
Because it is unmilked black tea, the caffeine is real, similar to an ordinary cup of black tea. If you are having it after dinner and you sleep badly, that is worth noticing. Make the evening one weak, or make it with only a pinch of leaf.
You get acid reflux or heartburn. Strong black tea plus lemon on an empty stomach is a classic trigger, so have it after food. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, keep total daily caffeine within whatever limit your own doctor or midwife has given you, and count this glass towards it. Black tea with meals can interfere with iron absorption, which matters if you have been told your iron is low, so leave a gap of an hour or so around iron-rich meals or supplements. Cloves and cassia cinnamon are fine in the small whole amounts here but are not things to load up on daily. Children are usually given a very weak, mostly lemon-and-spice version, if at all, and caffeinated tea is not generally offered to small children. If you take any regular medication, including blood thinners, blood pressure tablets or diabetes medication, or you have a health condition, ask your own doctor before making this a daily habit. This is food and tradition writing, not medical advice.
Leftovers and reheating
Sulaimani keeps for a day in a covered jug in the fridge, provided you strained out the leaf. It reheats acceptably in a pan over low heat, but stop well before a simmer, because reheated lemon tea goes dull fast. Better still, reheat the tea and stir in a fresh squeeze of lemon at the end.
Cold sulaimani over ice, with an extra squeeze of lemon and a mint leaf, is genuinely good and is what a lot of Gulf households do with the leftovers in summer. Drink it within 24 hours.
Try this this week
Next time you cook a heavy meal, rice and meat and ghee, skip the milk tea afterwards and make a small glass of this instead. Serve it hot, in glass rather than a mug, so people can see the colour. Notice how differently the end of the meal feels.
If you like this one
For the green, saffron-scented cousin of this drink, read Kashmiri kahwa. If you want something for the same after-dinner moment but with no caffeine at all, the saunf and ajwain jug is the household standby, and adrak tulsi chai covers the cold-morning slot. The rest of the series lives under Desi Remedies.
Is sulaimani the same as black tea with lemon?
Not quite. The spices are the point. Cardamom, clove and cinnamon simmered in the water before the tea goes in is what makes it sulaimani rather than a lemon tea. Skip them and you have made something perfectly nice but different.
Can I make it without sugar?
You can, but the lemon will dominate and it tastes thin. If you are cutting sugar, drop to one teaspoon and reduce the lemon to a teaspoon and a half so the two stay in balance.
My tea went cloudy. What happened?
Usually lemon hitting tea that was still near boiling, or very hard water. Add the lemon later and cooler. Cloudiness is cosmetic, the tea is still fine to drink.
Can I make a big batch for guests?
Yes. Scale the spices and water, steep the tea, strain the whole lot into a flask, and add the lemon per glass as you pour. Lemon sitting in a flask for an hour goes bitter, so keep it out until the last moment.