Mortar composition made of ingredients including an Arabic Gum, a sand, and water, which when cured may provide a composition having properties including microcracks from 20 to 500 nm wide and 0.1 to 500 μm long, and granules that are bundles of 20 to 1000 microfilaments in the form of cylinders. The mortar composition may combine a useful combination of one or more features selected from initial setting time, mortar flow, compressive strength when cured, flexural strength when cured and volume of permeable voids.