SpiceLines

Another sip and I’ve ricocheted to my grandmother’s house, where I’m drinking warm mint tea with honey. Like all good Southerners, she kept a luxuriant patch of mint growing under a leaky faucet by the back door. When serving the tea, she’d leave a silver spoon in the glass to absorb the heat so I wouldn’t burn my lips.

But Moroccan mint tea has a secret ingredient. There’s the sugar, of course, and the mint, preferably this crinkly leafed spearmint, which I saw by the cartload in the Marrakech souk. Its pungent, cooling scent made my head spin when I sniffed it from ten steps away.

The real secret of the Moroccan brew is a hefty dose of gunpowder tea, a type of green tea in which the leaves are rolled into little “pearls” resembling pellets of gunpowder once stuffed into cannons. The tea adds a faintly bitter edge to the sweetness of the sugar and the mint—otherwise, it would be like drinking mint candy.

According to Wikipedia, gunpowder tea has been around since the Tang Dynasty (618-907), but it didn’t get to Morocco until the 18th century when trade with Europe began. Bags of tea and sugar were presented, apparently, to Sultan Moulay Ismail as gifts and in exchange for European prisoners.

In Morocco mint tea is jokingly called Berber whiskey. The Berbers don’t drink alcohol, of course—so the tea, stiff and bracing, stands in for liquor. It energises the drinker in the morning, revives flagging spirits at noon, and fortifies the body for the long evening walk home. If you’ve ever been offered tea by a rug merchant, you know it’s the all-purpose lubricant for business and social transactions.

There are quite few jokes that poke fun at the Berbers, incidentally. At Abdul’s spice stall in Marrakesh, I saw a wrinkly, fibrous root labeled “Berber Viagra”—in fact, dried ginseng root known for its energising properties. The litle donkeys you see plodding along the roads? Berber Mercedes.

At the Kasbah du Toubkal, chef Omar aerates the tea by pouring it from a
height of 18 inches or more. Aerating is said to improve the flavor.

There is a very specific ritual for making Moroccan mint tea. At the Kasbah du Toubkal, chef Omar first cleanses the gunpowder tea of any impurities by swishing it with boiling water, then adds the mint, sugar and more boiling water. After a minute or two he plunks his battered metal teapot on the gas flame to bring it back to boil. Then comes the drama: Holding the pot high in the air, he aerates the tea by pouring a thin stream into each glass, never losing a drop.

If you’re making this at home, it helps to have a metal teapot, though you probably don’t want to put your great aunt’s antique silver one directly over the flame. You can also make mint tea in a pan on the stove and strain it into a glass or china teapot before serving. Just don’t let the mixture steep too long, since the gunpowder pearls can make the tea bitter if left to sit for more than a few minutes.

Now, wrap your frozen hands around a steaming glass and take a stroll in the snow before it melts.

Moroccan Mint Tea
(adapted from chef Omar at the Kasbah du Toubkal and Peggy Markel’s Culinary Adventures)

If you are using 4 ounce Moroccan tea glasses, this recipe will make about 6 glasses of mint tea.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup gunpowder green tea
About 32 ounces boiling water
1/3 cup sugar (or to taste)
1 bunch fresh spearmint

Method:

1. In a metal teapot, or in a medium pan, pour about 4 ounces of boiling water over the gunpowder green tea. Pour off the water into a tea glass and reserve.
2. Pour another 4 ounces over the green tea, swish it and discard.
3. Pour the first glass of tea back into the pot. Add the sugar, the mint, and the rest of the boiling water. Let it steep for a few minutes, then return briefly to a boil.
4. Serve the sweet mint tea from the metal teapot, or from a glass or china teapot. (If your teapot does not have built in strainer holes, you should pour it through a strainer first.) Aerate the tea (and test your hand to eye coordination!) by pouring it into the glasses from a height of 18 inches or more. Drink while it is still hot and steaming.