#redguards

Breton and Imperial both tend to like their tea black with occasional cream and/or sugar. Their tea cultures probably look nearly indistinguishable to outsiders, but there are subtle differences that they each think makes them superior to the other.

Khajiit enjoy strongly spiced powder teas ceremonially sweetened with moon sugar

Much to the horror of Bretons and Imperials, both Nords and Orcs prefer their tea salted and frothy with milk and butter

The Altmer have an extremely complex tea culture, especially in the higher levels of society. It can take an entire human lifespan to learn the more advanced art form and understand the social politics that can accompany it.

The Dunmer have a truly unique taste that is seldom appreciated beyond those that grew up with the culture. They like their tea very strong; sometimes bitter, sometimes spicey. They are one of the few peoples to regularly incorporate powdered mushrooms into their teas.

Redguards, like the Khajiit, enjoy sweet spiced tea, but like the Nords and Ocrs, they also have a version of buttered or 'fatted' tea that is renowned across the continent for promoting endurance. It was developed as a staple for long cross-desert journeys

Bosmer also enjoy tea, but it's notably different from all the other provinces in that the tea leaves can only be harvested after they fall naturally. Sometimes the tea is even brewed in unsalted bone broth to make the beverage more sustaining. Foreigners are often warned away from sampling Bosmeri teas as the Wood Elves have a unique resilience to certain toxic leaves and berries they use for added flavor.

You are correct that the nomadic Ash’abah are primarily at home deeper in the northern Hammerfell deserts. This is partially because of the posher coastal folk making their disdain known to the group, and partially because, in the words of a member of an Ash'abah group I stayed with for a few weeks, they are at home in the desert.

In a similar vein to Ashlanders in Morrowind, Ash'abah cuisine is shaped by the hostile environments they inhabit, and are therefore unique from urban Redguard fare. While trade with wandering merchants is certainly arranged in order to obtain essential ingredients like spices, grains, and oils, it isn't relied on as the backbone of Ash'abah food.

The traditional Ash'abah diet is somewhat restricted due to the scarcity of the Alik'r, yet through generations of shared knowledge, they have learned to harvest the bounty of the sands. Dunerippers; lizards; giant scorpions, snakes, and spiders; wild goats and camels; rodents, and birds like fellrunners all have edible components, if you know how to cook them! Aloe and cactus are also popular, refreshing inclusions in food to make up for the lack of vegetation.

That which resonates becomes inseparable from personal truth, and a personal truth shared among many is mightier than an absolute truth imposed upon all. In a world where gods and heroes are tangibly empowered through faith and ritual alone, the Redguards weave histories into legends to manipulate common dogma and distort the boundary between the mundane and divine. Historical recordkeeping is therefore the performative tradition of shamans, theologians, and poets, indifferent to their own credibility, for it is customary to innovate on the past with new knowledge and embellish it with modern trends. 

☝️☝️☝️sometimes i wonder if people shy away for fear of exoticizing which...well, if they don't trust themselves to do the research and depict it well, then fair enough. but it's worth doing the damn research! making everything Vaguely European is not the way out. i have noticed the same lack w/r/t redguard OCs.

gonna take an excuse to babble about a headcanon: Hammerfell is explicitly mentioned to have a seafaring culture. so it follows that the province would lead advances in math, astronomy, engineering etc... all the disciplines that go hand-in-hand with shipbuilding to ensure you don't die in the middle of the fucking ocean. where might the empire turn to get accurate maps of its coastlines and therefore an understanding of its territories?

sailing cultures have advantage in trade. over time, port towns will develop some form of cultural enclave catering to the crews that come in, and port towns are usually populous (except dawnstar i guess... that place just sucks). the sailor's cant i half-assedly made up largely relied on the sparse Yoku page on uesp with a couple north & west African languages to fill in the blanks. my thinking was that the most advanced seafaring culture would have the most influence on a trade language. also something that many merchants would learn.

Like, it's one thing to say that the Empire is a force of cohesion in Tamriel, but I don't think you're paying much attention if you can tell me they're doing a good job of it.