Hawaij: soup and coffee
Also known as hawayej, hawaji, Yemeni spice mix
Quick answer
Two unrelated Yemeni blends sharing one name. Hawaij for soup is a savoury turmeric-and-cumin mixture; hawaij for coffee is a sweet cardamom-and-ginger one. Buying the wrong one is not a shade of difference but a category error.
In essentially every version: Green cardamom.
2distinct versions are recorded below. None of them is presented as the correct one, because there isn’t one.
A note on the name
Not contested in the trademark sense, but genuinely ambiguous: one word names two blends that share a single ingredient. SpiceHQ records both under one entity because the name is one name and a reader searching for hawaij needs to be told which they want — splitting them into two records would answer the question they did not ask.
What goes in it
The defining core first, then the versions. Roles are recorded so it is clear what each ingredient is doing.
| Ingredient | Role | How essential |
|---|---|---|
| Green cardamom (ground)The one component both blends share, and the reason they are recognisable as relatives despite doing entirely different jobs. | primary aromatic | defining |
| Cumin (ground)The soup blend. Absent from the coffee one entirely. | base | regional |
| Turmeric (ground)The soup blend, and what gives Yemenite chicken soup its colour. | colour | regional |
| Black pepper (ground)The soup blend. | supporting aromatic | regional |
| Ginger (ground)The coffee blend, where it usually leads. | primary aromatic | regional |
| Cinnamon (Ceylon) (ground)The coffee blend. | supporting aromatic | regional |
| Cloves (ground)The coffee blend, in a small proportion. | supporting aromatic | optional |
| Coriander seed (ground)A soup-blend component in some households. | base | optional |
The variability here is categorical rather than incremental, which makes hawaij unusual in this dataset. There are two blends, they share one ingredient, and no proportion of one produces the other. Within each, household variation is ordinary — how much pepper in the soup blend, whether the coffee blend carries clove or fennel — but the split between them is a fact about the name rather than a range within a recipe. A jar labelled simply "hawaij" is one of the two and the label frequently does not say which.
The versions
Each attributed, with how firm its proportions are stated plainly.
Hawaij for soup
household traditionalCommon Yemeni and Yemenite-Israeli household composition · proportions representative · medium confidence
The savoury blend: turmeric, cumin, black pepper and cardamom. Yellow, warm and used in the way a bouillon seasoning is used elsewhere.
| Ingredient | Parts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Cumin | 3 | 35% |
| Turmeric | 2 | 24% |
| Black pepper | 2 | 24% |
| Green cardamom | 1 | 12% |
| Coriander seed | 0–1 | 6% |
Hawaij for coffee
household traditionalCommon Yemeni and Yemenite-Israeli household composition · proportions representative · medium confidence
The sweet blend: ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and clove. Added to coffee grounds, and also used in baking and in some desserts.
| Ingredient | Parts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Ginger | 3 | 45% |
| Green cardamom | 2 | 30% |
| Cinnamon (Ceylon) | 1 | 15% |
| Cloves | 0.25–0.5 | 6% |
| Fennel seed | 0–0.5 | 4% |
Using it
The soup blend goes into the pot early and cooks for the duration — it is a base seasoning and its turmeric wants time. The coffee blend goes into the grounds before brewing, or into a batter, and is never cooked in a savoury dish. The one thing not to do is assume a jar labelled hawaij is the one you want: check the ingredients for turmeric, and if it is there you have the soup blend.
Two answers. The soup blend is earthy and warm, led by cumin with a turmeric background and a pepper edge — savoury, and closer to a curry powder than to anything else in the Levantine repertoire. The coffee blend is sweet and aromatic, led by ginger and cardamom, and reads as a chai spice to anyone who has met one.
None in either blend, beyond the pepper in the soup version and the ginger in the coffee one. Neither contains chilli.
- Soup blend: chicken soup, vegetable soups, lentils, rice, roast vegetables
- Coffee blend: coffee grounds, tea, baking, milk puddings
Scaling: Both scale linearly. The soup blend has a practical ceiling that the arithmetic does not show: turmeric turns bitter in quantity, so a batch scaled up and then used heavily in a single dish can go medicinal where the same proportion used lightly does not.
Storage
Good for: 6–12 months (typically 9 months)
Cool, dark, dry and closed.
A faded blend is a quality matter. Kept dry neither becomes unsafe.
Allergens and safety
Not among the substances that must be declared as allergens under EU Regulation 1169/2011 Annex II or under the United States major food allergen rules. That is a statement about labelling law and not about whether allergy occurs: allergic reactions to spices are documented in the clinical literature and are simply not a labelling category. Where a ground spice presents an allergen risk it is usually through adulteration or shared processing equipment rather than through the plant itself.
Culture and origin
Yemen, and carried into Israel by Yemenite Jewish emigration in the twentieth century, where both blends are now widely used well outside that community. The word means "mixture" and does not name a formula.
Yemen
Both blends are household mixtures rather than commercial products in their place of origin, and the coffee blend belongs to a coffee culture that is itself among the oldest in the world — Yemen is where coffee cultivation for drinking is first documented.
Israel
Carried by Yemenite Jewish emigration and now thoroughly naturalised: hawaij for soup is a standard supermarket item and appears in cooking with no Yemeni connection at all, and the coffee blend has become a common flavour in baking and desserts.