Moroccan Style Mint Tea
Moroccan style mint tea service with Dragonfly Three Mint Medley, fresh mint, sugar and pine nuts, poured from height.
This is a caffeine free take on Moroccan mint tea, the sweet, foamy mint service poured at cafe tables across North Africa. The classic version is built on gunpowder Green Tea with masses of fresh spearmint; here the Dragonfly Organic Three Mint Medley stands in for the green, so you get the same layered mint backbone without the caffeine. Plenty of fresh mint and sugar go into the pot, and the whole thing is poured from a height into small glasses.
Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for the Moroccan Style Mint Tea recipe. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/recipes/mint tea/moroccan style mint tea/
That high pour is the part that matters, and not just for show: the falling stream cools the tea a little, mixes the sugar through, and raises the light frothy head that tells you the glass is ready. Pour from about thirty centimetres up. For the full version with the three round tradition, see the traditional Moroccan tea ceremony; for an everyday mug, how to brew mint tea.
You'll need
- 4 Dragonfly Organic Three Mint Medley pyramid bags
- 600ml freshly drawn water
- A large generous handful of fresh mint leaves, ideally Moroccan spearmint, about 30g
- 3 tbsp golden caster sugar, or 2 small cones of Moroccan loaf sugar broken into pieces
- 1 tbsp pine nuts, to garnish (the traditional Maghrebi addition)
- 4 small Moroccan tea glasses or any small heatproof glass tumblers
Method
- Boil the kettle, then take it off the heat for thirty seconds to settle to about 95C. At a full boil the menthol scalds and the tea turns harsh.
- Warm a small teapot, around 700ml, by rinsing it with hot water and tipping it out, so it holds the heat through the steep.
- Bruise the fresh mint by cupping it in your palms and clapping once or twice. This breaks the leaf surface and lets the oils into the brew.
- Put the four tea bags and the bruised mint into the warm pot and pour over the 600ml of water.
- Add the sugar straight to the pot rather than the glasses, so it dissolves evenly as the tea steeps. The service is meant to be sweet.
- Cover and steep for eight minutes; the bigger leaf load and volume need a touch longer than a single cup.
- Lift out and discard the tea bags, leaving the fresh mint in the pot.
- Stand the glasses on a tray. Hold the spout about thirty centimetres above each one and pour in a steady stream, raising a frothy head as it falls.
- Float a few pine nuts on each glass and serve at once, while the foam holds.
Want the background, not just the brew?
Brewed with: Dragonfly Organic Three Mint Medley, 40 Tea Bags 100g
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