Desserts + Teas

The word “dessert,” referring to a sweet dish usually eaten at the end of a meal, was first used in France in the sixteenth century. However, the tradition of eating a sweet course at the end of the meal goes back over 2,500 years to the ancient Persians. As far back as the fifth century BCE, Herodotus, the “father of history,” wrote: “The Persians believe that the Greeks finish their dinner still hungry because they don’t have any worthwhile desserts.” Iranians believed that finishing with sweets helped digest the meal.