Caribbean folks love Sero, West Africans adore Bissap, and Black Americans love red drink.

This century's old recipe is enjoyed across the diaspora, but what makes it so special

to Black people?

This is two-minute Black history, what you didn't learn in school.

In West Africa it's called Bissap, Cebollo and Zobo.

Across the Caribbean it's Sero.

In Latin America it's Angua de Jamaica, and in the United States, South region it's

called red drink.

And every sip is an ode to a four centuries-long history.

Red drink has been traced to West African countries where people first made crimson colored

drinks using hibiscus flowers and coladins.

In as many forms it's used medicinally and often as a special occasion drink.

In Slaived people snatched from ancestral lands, carried hibiscus seeds across the Atlantic.

In countries across the Caribbean, the plant thrived and was adapted to include local

spices and spirits like nutmeg, cinnamon, and rot.

The United States soil wasn't as inhabitable to the plant, so enslaved people innovated

the recipes further, swapping hibiscus for berries in the South and cherries in the

Mid-Atlantic region.

Red drink's earliest mention was in the 1870s South where folks colored lemonade using

strawberries, with the later introduction of coolade and big red becoming popular substitutes

for a homemade version.

Red drink is just one of the many commonalities we share across the diaspora.

...