Sahlab

Sahlab (also salep or sahlep) is a thick, warm, milky-white drink of the Middle East, the Levant and Turkey, traditionally made by thickening sweetened hot milk with salep — a fine flour ground from dried wild-orchid tubers — and served dusted with cinnamon and a scatter of chopped nuts. Velvety and faintly perfumed, it is a quintessential winter drink, sold steaming from street carts and cafés when the weather turns cold. Because true salep flour is now scarce and costly, most cups today are thickened instead with cornstarch and flavoured to taste, but the silky body and warm-spice finish remain the same. It is sweet, comforting and non-alcoholic, as much a dessert in a cup as a beverage.