Moroccan Mint Tea Poured From Height

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

Gunpowder green tea steeped with a generous fistful of fresh spearmint and pressed sugar, then poured from arm's length to build the foam collar that marks a properly made glass. The two-stage method — a quick rinse to strip bitterness, then a short steep and a triple aeration pour — takes about fifteen minutes and gives you a tea that is sweet, grassy and startlingly aromatic rather than the flat mint syrup most people end up with.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp gunpowder green tea (about 8 g)
• 4 cups filtered water
• 1 large bunch fresh spearmint, about 1 packed cup of sprigs
• 3 tbsp granulated sugar, plus more to taste

• 1 strip lemon verbena or a 2-inch strip of orange peel
• 4 pine nuts, for the glasses

Instructions

1. Bring the 4 cups of filtered water to a boil in a kettle or saucepan. Meanwhile, wash the mint well under cold water and shake it dry, leaving the sprigs whole with stems attached — the stems carry a lot of the aroma and hold the leaves together in the pot.
2. Put the gunpowder tea in a warmed teapot (a 1-quart metal Moroccan pot is ideal, but any teapot works). Pour in about 1/2 cup of the boiling water, swirl for 20 to 30 seconds, then pour that water off and discard it. This rinse removes dust and the harsh first bitterness from the tightly rolled leaves.
3. Add a second 1/2 cup of boiling water to the rinsed leaves and let them steep 30 seconds, then pour this liquid into a heatproof cup and reserve it. This is the concentrated 'spirit' of the tea and it goes back in later — do not throw it out.
4. Pack the mint sprigs into the teapot on top of the leaves, add the sugar, then pour in the remaining boiling water (about 3 cups). Add the lemon verbena or orange peel if using. Pour the reserved tea concentrate back into the pot.
5. Set the pot over low heat, or simply cover it and let it stand, and steep for 4 to 5 minutes. Do not let it boil hard once the mint is in — boiled mint turns bitter and dulls the color.
6. Stir once with a long spoon, then taste from a spoon. It should be assertively sweet and clearly minty; add another tablespoon of sugar if it tastes thin, and give it 30 seconds to dissolve.
7. Aerate the tea: hold a glass low, pour a stream in, then pour it straight back into the pot. Repeat three times, raising the pot higher each time until you are pouring from 10 to 12 inches above the glass. This mixes the sugar, cools the tea slightly and builds the foam.
8. Set out 4 small heatproof glasses and drop a pine nut into each if you like. Pour into the glasses from as high as you can manage cleanly — you want a 1/4-inch cap of foam on each. Serve immediately, and refill from the pot while it is still hot; the second and third rounds pull more sweetness from the mint.

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Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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