The North-African preparation of gunpowder green tea with mint and sugar; in Algeria the word for tea is atay, and it is offered to guests as a ritual sign of welcome.
Bright, grassy green tea sweetened to a syrupy edge and lifted by cooling spearmint, with a soft foam on top. Hot, refreshing and aromatic, it lingers sweet then faintly bitter.
Pouring from a height aerates the tea and creates the prized foam, while repeated pouring back into the pot evenly distributes the dissolved sugar and mint oils throughout the brew.
Variations
More or less sugar; pine nuts dropped into the glass (especially in the Tunisian and Saharan style); wormwood (chiba/sheeba) added in winter when mint is scarce, for a bitter, warming note; the same leaves brewed across three successive pourings, strong to mild.
On the Palate
Where Maghrebi Mint Tea (Algerian Atay) sits in the Algerian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
8 steps · 5 min
- 12 min
Rinse gunpowder green tea leaves briefly with a little hot water to remove bitterness, then discard that water.
Watch outRinse the gunpowder leaves with hot water for just a few seconds and tip it out — this washes off the harsh bitterness, but linger and you pour away the flavor too.
- 24 min
Add fresh boiling water to the tea in a metal teapot and let it steep gently.
- 31 min
Add a generous handful of fresh spearmint sprigs to the pot.
- 41 min
Add sugar to taste and stir to dissolve.
- 53 min
Warm the pot briefly so the tea, mint and sugar infuse together.
- 62 min
Pour a glass and return it to the pot two or three times to mix and aerate.
Watch outPull a glass and pour it back into the pot two or three times — taste one: when the sugar and mint taste evenly spread through, it's mixed.
- 72 min
Pour from a height into small glasses to raise a layer of foam.
Watch outPour from up high in a thin stream so it foams — that crown of froth on top is the sign of a properly poured glass.
- 82 min
Serve very hot, traditionally in three successive rounds.
