Moroccan Mint Tea

Moroccan Tea is supposed to be "so hot that it burns your tongue and so sweet that it hurts your teeth".

• Ready In: 7 mins
• Serves: 8
• Yields: 8 cups

Ingredients

• 8 1⁄2 cups boiling water
• 2  teaspoons  gunpowder  green tea leaves
• 10  leaves spearmint
• 1⁄2 cup sugar

Directions

1. The first trick to making Moroccan tea properly is to heat up your teapot and "wash your tea" first. Moroccans say that this washing process takes the bitterness out of the tea. To do this, you add about 6 oz. of boiling water to about 2 teaspoons gunpowder green tea, and then you swish it all around in the teapot.
2. The second part of "washing the tea" involves adding about 10 mint leaves (spearmint or silver mint is the closest we have to their mint) 1/2 cup sugar (or to your taste). You then swish the liquid in the teapot around again and pour out all the water through a strainer while leaving as much of the tea, mint, and sugar in the pot as possible.
3. After washing and straining the tea, you completely fill your teapot by pouring boiling water over the tea and mint leaves. Let it steep for several minutes.
4. Moroccan tea is always served hot in skinny glasses (kind of like tall shot glasses) with about 3 mint leaves in the bottom. You pour the tea into the glass from as high as you can manage without spilling it in order to aerate the tea with oxygen. The glass container is as much of the secret to the taste as the "washing of the tea" and the way you should pour the tea into your glass.