Apple-Mint Tea: A soothing blend to sip on as the nights get cooler

CBC Life | Posted: September 9, 2019 8:09 PM | Last Updated: September 9, 2019

Grab your freshly picked apples — and this recipe from Greg and Lucy Malouf — and get to steepin’

Image | Apple-Mint Tea

Caption: (Photography by Alan Benson)

It’s hard to deny the power of a warming drink — especially on those early fall evenings when even a slight breeze feels like a full-on blizzard. That’s why we love this sweet and soothing tea, in the style of teas sipped across the Middle East and North Africa — from Greg and Lucy Malouf’s cookbook Suqar. The blend serves as a sort of transitional sipper, bringing the best summer and fall flavours together in one steaming mug.

Apple-Mint Tea

By Greg and Lucy Malouf

From Turkey to Tehran, and right across to North Africa, tea is usually drunk hot and sweet. This hybrid recipe combines some of the region’s favourite flavours — Turkish apple and Moroccan mint — and finishes with the classic Arabian garnish of pine nuts. For our taste, the apple juice provides sufficient sweetness, but add extra sugar if you like. Serve in attractive glasses with your favourite wafer biscuit.

Ingredients

500 mL water
1 tsp good-quality black tea leaves
60 mL clear organic apple juice
1 pink lady apple, cut through the core into 2 mm (⅛ in) slices
1 lime, cut crossways into 2 mm (⅛ in) slices
1 bunch mint, washed
20g pine nuts

Preparation

Bring the water to the boil in a medium saucepan, then tip onto the tea leaves in a warmed ceramic bowl. Stir in the apple juice. Add most of the apple and lime slices and most of the mint, reserving some of each to garnish. Cover the bowl and leave to steep for 10 minutes.

Once steeped, strain the tea back into the saucepan and bring it back to the boil. Tip into a teapot and add the reserved fruit slices and mint sprigs.

Serve in little glasses, and garnish each with a few pine nuts.

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