The Search for the Perfect Mint Tea

I’m a bit behind. So much has happened in the past couple of days. I have seen mosques, Roman ruins, and busy markets, traveled through beautiful green landscapes, tried delicious Moroccan foods, and even sampled Morocco’s take on Italian food. But the famous mint tea has still stood out among all other experiences as the most memorable.

Those of you who know my family know we are avid tea drinkers, with me being by far the least knowledgeable about the intricacies involved in preparing a good cup of tea. I had tried “Moroccan mint tea” in the US, and it soon became my favorite. I was therefore very excited about trying the real thing on my trip.

So you can probably guess how ecstatic I was when, upon arrival at the Moroccan House Hotel, I was offered a plate of cookies and a cup of mint tea while being checked in. What a nice welcome to Morocco! It was good tea, but I had yet to try the best mint tea! (I also discovered later that I seemed to be the only one who received such an elaborate greeting upon check in, so I guess I arrived at just the right time!)

The next day, my roommate Stephanie and I were walking through Casablanca’s medina when we had two more tea-related encounters. The first involved haggling with a man selling a silver teapot that neither of us actually wanted. We had merely stopped at the stand to look at the teapot, but of course in Morocco this means that we look like we want to buy it. The merchant approached us, offering to sell us the pot for 300 dirham. Well, although it would be great to bring home a silver teapot, it was a bit early in the trip to have to lug it around the rest of the week. Plus, it didn’t appear to be that great of quality. When we said we were not interested, he lowered the price. Still not interested. To show how sturdy these things were, he took pot and started rubbing it across the ground…and one of the legs broke off! He lowered the price again, but we walked away.

Our next tea experience offered us what is so far the best cup of tea I have ever tasted. Further in the Medina, we came across a tiny little tea house where a woman was making fresh bread. We ordered a pot of mint tea, and it was served to us in a silver pot with two glass cups. We admired the fresh mint leaves inside the pot and enthusiastically poured our first cups. Just as we were getting ready to taste it, an old man came up and basically told us we were doing it wrong! He poured our tea back into the pot, then poured from the pot to the glasses in a long stream. He repeated this action a couple of times before signaling that we were ready to drink. It was the most delicious minty flavor I had ever tasted! What the man had done was cause the mint to wilt more into the water, infusing the water with all its minty goodness. This was officially the tea to beat! We enjoyed every last drop, fell into a tea coma, and almost forgot to return to the hotel with the thought of having more tea instead.

Since then we have had other mint teas, but none have quite lived up to that one in the small tea shop in Casablanca. Will we find better tea later on the trip? Maybe. But this one will be hard to beat!