After a gorgeous week in Morocco I am attempting to master Moroccan tea in my apartment. The traditional tea ceremony involves “rinsing” the green (gunpowder) tea to remove murkiness. I started off just steeping my tea as I normally do, just with mint and sugar added, but found the result to indeed be a bit muddy in taste and color. So now I’m been trying to follow the actual process. Here’s what I do for 2tsp gunpowder tea:

• Pour 4oz boiling water over tea in a metal pot, which I keep on the stove over a low flame. Steep for 1 min, pour out water, reserve
• Pour another 4oz boiling water over the tea, swirl it around for a minute, pour out water, discard
• Add sugar and mint. Pour in 8oz boiling water and the reserved half cup from first step. Simmer ~3-5 min. Pour into a little cup from a high height to get some frothing

This is (as far as I can remember!) the way I was taught in Morocco and how I’ve seen it described on a number of blogs. The result is just not quite right! I feel like I’m maybe losing too much tannin in the second step? What I’m getting is missing the pull and acidity of green tea. I know the process is designed to reduce some of that bite but the tea I had in Morocco was still very strong despite the rinsing process.

I’m using Adagio brand green gunpowder tea. Is that not a good brand for this preparation? I use a metal teapot from Chinatown, which is very thin (I don’t know that I want to shell out for a decorative Moroccan set)…could that be the problem somehow? Am I missing a step?

Thanks to anyone who can help :)