Zobo has a sour taste so it can clash with sugar. Some people prefer to keep their Zobo drink as natural as possible hence using only natural ingredients when preparing the drink. You may add artificial flavours and sweeteners such as Nutri-C and sugar if you wish.
Ingredients for Nigerian Zobo drink
The following are what I used to make 5 litres of Zobo drink. You can get more with the same quantity of ingredients depending on the concentration you want. If you will be using artificial flavours, you need to add more water.
2 De Rica cups of dry Zobo leaves
Garlic – 1 glove
Ginger – 1 big piece
Ripe pineapple – 1
Enough water
To garnish: it is your choice to add any sliced citrus fruits of your choice: orange, lemon, lime.
Before you make the Zobo drink
Wash the dry Zobo leaves repeatedly in cold water because are usually very dusty so make sure you wash off all the dust
It will seem like all the flavours/colour of the zobo are being washed off but do not worry, you will see that the dry zobo leaves still have a lot of the colour intact when you start boiling it
Wash, peel and cut the pineapple into thin slices. Some people add the peel of the pineapple when making the zobo drink
Peel and cut the ginger and garlic into tiny pieces
Method
Put the washed zobo leaves into a deep pot.
Add the pineapples and pour enough water to cover the contents of the pot and then some.
Start cooking at medium to high heat and let it boil for 5 minutes.
Add the ginger and the garlic, add more water and keep boiling for at least 30 minutes. This is the time it will take for the zobo leaves to be completely soft and the pineapples tender
Turn off the heat and set aside to cool down completely
When cool, squeeze out the juice from the pineapples and zobo leaves, leaving only the zobo juice in the pot
Pour the juice through a sieve to take out the remaining large particles to the tiniest particles
Add any artificial flavours of your choice at this time and stir
Pour into bottles and refrigerate
