Browsing through the food menu at Hamdi's, a Somali restaurant
in central Nairobi that is frequented mainly by non-Somali
office workers during their lunch hour, one item stands out from
the list of delicious Somali cuisine: camel milk tea. Once the
sole preserve of nomadic Somali and Middle East communities,
camel milk, which is naturally semi-skimmed, three times as rich
in vitamin C as cows' milk and packed with antibodies, is
increasingly being recognised for its health benefits by the
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and health conscious
consumers. In Nairobi, camel milk is now available in
restaurants and supermarkets. For more adventurous foodies,
camel milkshakes and camelcino – a cappuccino made with camel
milk – can be found in some eateries. But for pastoralist
communities in Kenya, who depend on camels for their survival,
the hardy animals that can go for 10 days without water offer
more than milk in a coffee cup. Unlike cows and goats, camels
can produce milk during the dry season and in t