Moroccan mint tea

Ingredients:

Dried gunpowder green tea leaves Fresh mint and herbs, ideally 7 varieties Sugar (we use brown sugar cubes)

Method:

Toss a generous spoonful of dried gunpowder green tea leaves into a large metal teapot. Then, rinse off fresh mint leaves along with the herbs of your choice, and stuff as much as you can into the teapot. Add boiling water. Then, light a gas burner and adjust to high heat. Set the tea pot directly over the flame. Once the tea begins bubbling excessively, remove from heat. Lift the tea pot, pour the tea into a small glass teacup from as high as you can, and then return the tea back to the teapot. This is called “rinsing” or “cleaning” the mint tea, and is done anywhere from 1 to 6 times before pouring a cup of tea. When the tea is a beautiful deep yellow-green colour, pour a glass and add as much sugar as you’d like. Serve warm with coconut cookies (see this recipe https://www.marrakech-riad.co.uk/cook-moroccan-recipe/coconut-cookies/ ).

Notes:

• There are over 600 varieties of mint in the world! To learn more about the most popular varieties used in Morocco, turn to page 15.
• We serve our tea with sugar on the side, but most Moroccans add sugar directly to the teapot before serving.
• It is important to pour the tea from very high above the cup because it helps to aerate and develop the tea’s flavour.
• Moroccans believe that the more bubbles you have in your tea, the better.
• You’ll find that as you drink a pot of tea the flavour will change from cup to cup as the leaves continue steeping in the pot.

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