The 500-year history of how sorrel migrated from West Africa to become the original 'Red Drink'

• Sorrel is a traditional drink made from hibiscus flowers with roots in West Africa.
• The drink made its way to America and abroad during the transatlantic slave trade.

When enslaved Africans were captured and traded across the Atlantic Ocean 500 years ago, they brought something their captors couldn't take away from them. They possessed knowledge of the hibiscus flower, whose bright-red buds could be brewed into an aromatic and medicinal drink.

Spiced with ginger, cloves, and citrus, sorrel — the Caribbean name for hibiscus flowers — became the original "Red Drink" among the African diaspora.

In the United States, Black Americans celebrate Juneteenth with red-hued food, which some food historians believe symbolizes the blood shed by their enslaved ancestors. In many West African cultures, red is also a symbol of strength, spirituality, and life and death.

"Its color and taste influence the way that Black folks in the new world have a certain aesthetic toward drinking certain things," culinary historian Michael Twitty told Insider. "There's a constant comment about Black folks and Kool-Aid — but before Kool-Aid, there was sorrel."

A cultural heirloom

Because slaves were not permitted to read or write, recipes for sorrel were originally passed down verbally from generation to generation.

After slavery was abolished in America in the 19th century, immigrants continued to bring pieces of their culture with them. In 1920, a trained chef named Deighton Merrick and his wife Nita left Barbados for America, seeking opportunities that weren't available to them on the colonized island. Just like their ancestors before them, the Merricks taught recipes to their offspring, who then passed them down to their own children.

"It is a dark history, but there is so much joy and persistence in this," Jackie Summers, the Merricks' grandson and owner of the liquor company Sorel, said. "This country would like to wash over all of the things that it's done, but by preserving their traditions, they were taking their lives into their own hands."

Reconnecting with heritage across a diaspora

There is no one definitive version of sorrel, reflecting the varied experiences and cultures of the African diaspora, according to Summers.

In Jamaica, where there was an influx of Chinese indentured workers in the late 19th and early 20th century, sorrel is flavored with ginger and five spice. In Trinidad and Tobago, where there were many East Indian migrants, sorrel contained clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

These spices are also indigenous to West Africa, and the variations in sorrel illustrate how different cultures melded and reinforced one another, Twitty said.

Food and beverages like sorrel are just one of the many ways members of the African diaspora are reconnecting with their shared heritage, where "different parts of the diaspora are teaching each other about the things we missed out on," according to Twitty.

Reconnecting with ancestors' traditions is a crucial way to heal from a history of trauma.

"We're talking about trying to repair a 500-year-old trauma — not just being ripped out of Africa, not just being separated into different colonies, not just having to deal with oppression, exploitation, and violence," Twitty said. "We're recovering our heritage. We're learning from each other, celebrating in our Blackness, and treating our cuisines with the same reverence that anybody else around the world does theirs."