Moroccan Sweet Mint Sparkler
The summer rainbow drinks countdown continues with the Moroccan Sweet Mint Sparkler. This beverage is inspired by our trip to Morocco 4 years ago that included mint tea every day. It was made for us at each place we went and when we came back to our Riad each day and it was lovely and miraculously simple.
Moroccans have mint carried into the Medina each day, several times a day, in large bunches and sold on the streets. People clearly bought it fresh several times a day in quantities. As it wilts in the heat very quickly and it is hot in Morocco.
When it is prepared, the whole mint stalks with leaves are folded into a tall large tea pot, turbinado sugar is added, and boiling water is poured over top. This is steeped for a few minutes and poured into small glasses to serve.
We were often asked if we wanted our Moroccan Mint tea sweetened or not, then given it sweetened, since the rest of my travellers wanted sweetened tea.
Staying true to the inspiration for the drink, we made this simple and sweet!
This recipe made three glasses:
- 20-30 mint leaves, no stalks
- 1 Tbsp coconut sugar
- 6 oz. boiling hot water
- ice cubes
- mint sparkling water
We started with about 25 mint leaves, added coconut sugar and around 6 oz. of boiling hot water, enough to cover the leaves and stir to dissolve the sugar. We let that steep for about 5-10 minutes while we made a mint sparkling water and put ice cubes in glasses. We added about 2 oz of the hot sweet mint mix (no leaves please) to the bottom of a glass, over our prepared ice, added mint sparkling water over top and garnish with more mint. Serve and enjoy
Note: we added more hot water to the mint leaves to eek out the most flavour possible when we wanted a refill of this drink, and we wanted refills.
