Green Oasis – Gunpowder Green Tea with Mint

Our Organic Green Oasis tea is a superb blend of Gunpowder green tea and organic spearmint. The bold and tangy gunpowder is teamed with the soothing and refreshing mint to balance the daring nature of the gunpowder green tea. A tea for lovers of big flavours, this bold tea is inspired by Moroccan tea, drunk by millions of people worldwide. The tea can be sweetened, or not, and it is as stimulating as it is soothing and ultimately aromatic.

What is Gunpowder Tea?

Gunpowder tea, also known as zhu chá, is so-called because of its distinctive 'pellet' form. Rather than strands of tea, larger parts of the tea leaf are rolled into small balls known as 'gunpowder' in the west, and 'pearls' or 'beads' in the East. This method of compression drying started more than a thousand years ago in China during the Tang Dynasty, where tea producers would compress tea leaves into bricks (for currency) and 'cakes' for safer transportation. For gunpowder tea, this style of drying is usually associated with green or oolong tea, and the process starts with rolling steamed leaves, and the tighter the roll, the less breakage the tea suffers, so the finer or smaller the pellet, the better the overall quality. Today, machines do the rolling; however, the finest, a most superior grade of gunpowder tea is still rolled by hand to this day.

Moroccan Tea

A vast amount of gunpowder tea is exported to the Maghreb region of North Africa to make 'Maghrebi Mint Tea' which is incredibly popular in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and Western Sahara. The tea is prepared with fresh spearmint leaves and blocks of sugar, and 'Moroccan Tea' is famous for its strength, flavour and potency. Drunk ceremonially, and traditionally prepared by the male patriarch of the family, it is a sign of hospitality to guests, friends and family members. With the sugar and spearmint added to the teapot itself, the brewed and sweetened tea is the elaborately poured into decorative glasses at a substantial height to gently aerate the infusion.

Moroccan Tea Recipe

Although ‘Moroccan Tea’ is considered a mint tea, and it does contain a lot of spearmint, its base begins with strong green tea. Here’s our recipe which can be tweaked to taste, but sugar will play a considerable part in that because of the richness of the strong Gunpowder green tea.

Boil (filtered) cold water
Place 1 teaspoon per person of Green Oasis Gunpowder green tea in a teapot
Pour over some freshly boiled water – swirl gently and discard the water retaining the tea – this process wakes up the tea!
Using the remaining boiled water, pour over the wet leaves
Steep the tea for 2 minutes
Add a handful of sprigs of fresh spearmint or dried peppermint to the pot
Add at least 3-4 teaspoons of granulated sugar into the teapot and stir
Allow the brew to infuse for 3-4 more minutes
Pour from a height (take care not to scald you or your friends!) into heat-proof glasses
Enjoy the bold sweet flavours

When to Drink Gunpowder

Tea experts and authors of Tea Classified, Jane Pettigrew and Bruce Richardson suggest that a hot cup of gunpowder tea is best drunk at mid-morning or lunch time and especially after eating. The caffeine content will help drinkers stay alert, and the addition of mint in our Green Oasis can soothe a full tummy. The tea can be brewed up to three times, getting softer and less potent with each brew, but going a long way.

How to Brew Green Oasis

Top Tip: Make sure that you pour only boiled water after it has cooled slightly to 80-85 Celsius to ensure the tea tips do not burn when brewing.

The standard process is as follows:

Boil some filtered cold water
Place the tea leaves in a tea strainer or filter basket
Pour over the hot water
Steep the tea for the appropriate amount of time
Strain the tea
Sweeten with sugar lumps or honey the tea to taste (we don’t recommend adding milk!)
Sit back and enjoy

1st August 2019

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