Mint tea

Ingredients

Tea

• 2 tbsp(about 10 g) Chinese gunpowder green tea
• 1large bunch fresh spearmint (na’na beldi), about 40 g, washed and left whole on the stem
• 50–80 gsugar, from a cone if you have one, or 6–8 cubes
• 700 mlwater, freshly drawn

Equipment

• 1berrad (metal teapot with a long curved spout)
• 4small decorated glasses
• 1tray

Optional additions

• 2 sprigsfresh wormwood (chiba), in winter
• 1 tspdried verbena or a few orange blossom drops, in summer

Directions

1. Boil the water and warm the pot with a splash of it, swirling and tipping it out.
2. Put the gunpowder tea in the pot, pour over about 100 ml boiling water, swirl for 20–30 seconds and pour that first liquid away. This rinse strips dust and the harshest tannin.
3. Now catch the tea’s soul: add another 100 ml boiling water, swirl, and pour this second infusion into a clean glass and set it aside. Keep it; it goes back in at the end.
4. Fill the pot with the rest of the boiling water and set it over a low flame. Bring it just to a simmer and hold for 3–4 minutes, no longer, or it turns bitter.
5. Take it off the heat, push the whole mint stems and the sugar down into the pot, and pour the reserved infusion back over them.
6. Return the pot to the flame for 2 minutes to dissolve the sugar, but do not let it boil with the mint in it or the leaves cook and go dull and grassy.
7. Mix by pouring: fill a glass from the pot and pour it straight back in. Do this three times. This dissolves the sugar evenly, cools the tea a little and builds the foam.
8. Taste from a glass and adjust the sugar. Moroccan mint tea is properly sweet; the sugar balances the tannin rather than simply sweetening.
9. Serve by raising the pot 30–40 cm above the glass and pouring in a long thin arc, then lowering it as the glass fills. Each glass should carry a small crown of foam, the sign of a good pour.
10. Serve on a tray, first glass to the eldest or to the guest, and refill from the same pot; the tea strengthens with each round.

Technique

• Pouring from height is not showmanship. It aerates the tea, softens the tannin and puts the foam on top, and Moroccans judge the pour before they judge the taste.
• Never boil the mint. It goes in off the heat or at the barest simmer, and only long enough to release its oil.
• The three-round custom is proverbial: the first glass gentle as life, the second strong as love, the third bitter as death, each poured from the same leaves.
• Spearmint, not peppermint. Peppermint’s menthol is too cold and aggressive against gunpowder tea, and no Moroccan household uses it.

Substitutions

• No gunpowder tea: any pellet-rolled Chinese green tea works. Avoid Japanese greens, which turn bitter and vegetal at this brewing temperature.
• Out of fresh mint, use 2 tbsp dried spearmint in a small strainer, but the tea will be flatter and less perfumed.
• A small teapot with a strainer will do; the long spout of a berrad simply makes a high pour easier to control.

Variations

• Atay bi chiba, mint tea with wormwood, drunk in the cold months for its bitter edge.
• Atay bi louiza, with lemon verbena, common in summer.
• Sahara-style tea, poured through three progressively stronger rounds in tiny glasses with a thick head of foam.

History

Green tea came through British merchants; accounts credit the Crimean War, when closed Baltic markets pushed traders to sell gunpowder tea in Tangier, where spearmint was added.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mint tea?

Mint tea is a drink from Morocco: gunpowder green tea steeped with fresh spearmint and sugar, poured from height. Green tea came through British merchants; accounts credit the Crimean War, when closed Baltic markets pushed traders to sell gunpowder tea in Tangier, where spearmint was added.

How long does Mint tea take to make?

Mint tea takes 5 min of preparation and 10 min of cooking. The recipe makes 4 small glasses. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Mint tea?

Yes, within limits. No gunpowder tea: any pellet-rolled Chinese green tea works. Avoid Japanese greens, which turn bitter and vegetal at this brewing temperature. Out of fresh mint, use 2 tbsp dried spearmint in a small strainer, but the tea will be flatter and less perfumed. A small teapot with a strainer will do; the long spout of a berrad simply makes a high pour easier to control.

What is the most important thing to get right in Mint tea?

Fill the pot with the rest of the boiling water and set it over a low flame. Bring it just to a simmer and hold for 3–4 minutes, no longer, or it turns bitter.