~Stephanie Meade
Moroccan Tea Culture
People drink tea at all times of day. It accompanies breakfast, it’s a snack, it’s served when guests come, it’s for after lunch and after dinner. Every occasion is a time for tea. Children start drinking it very young. When we were last in Morocco my daughter was 18 months and she was served tea.
Moroccan Tea Ingredients
Green tea (loose)
Fresh mint
Sugar
Instructions
1. To make the tea, you begin by boiling a pot of water.
2. Put approximately 2 T of loose green tea into the teapot. Rinse it in boiling water, dump water (keep tea).
3. Fill the tea pot with boiling water and add in a big handful of mint leaves (stems are fine). This is not an exact science and I would say about 8-10 sprigs of mint. Add at least 1/4 cup of sugar depending on the size of your tea pot. You’ll have to taste and adjust for sugar but this is indeed a very sugary tea! I always wish I didn’t see how much sugar my husband pours into it each time he makes it.
4. Set the tea on the stove and allow to simmer on low for about 5-10 minutes.
5. Cool for another 5-10 minutes and serve in glass cups if you want to drink it authentically Moroccan!
Tip: If you want the frothy top to the tea, pour the tea into cups from a tall distance from the cup and you’ll get a bit of a foamy top, as is shown in the photo below:
Creative Commons use of image by: Deeptrivia
Have you ever had delicious mint, Moroccan tea? Is tea popular in your culture? How do you make it or serve it?
I’m excited to share this easy recipe for Moroccan tea with you, from Stephanie, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the awesome web site InCultureParent. She has two Moroccan-American daughters (ages 4 and 6), whom she is raising, together with her husband, bilingual in Arabic and English at home. After many moves worldwide, she currently lives in Berkeley, California.
I tasted Moroccan tea when I lived in Paris. It has a pretty big Moroccan population there. It was way too sweet for my taste. I was born and raised in Belarus, and tea is pretty popular there too, especially in winter month. For special occasions my grandmother would make it in samovar – a traditional Russian “teapot”. It’s a strong black tea, and we do sugar it (individually in cups).