August 11, 2003
Tea Time
Everywhere you go in Mali, you see people sitting outside drinking tea out of these little shot glasses. It's like the national pasttime.
The tea is drunk in 3 rounds (so they can recycle the tea). The first round is quite strong (and is "strong like death"), the second round is "sweet like life", and the last round is "sugary like love". and you're supposed to serve the tea with peanuts.
as you can proably tell, i'm no chef....
Ingredients:
-25g Green Tea (Gunpowder brand)
-2 sprigs of mint (a sprig is about 5-10 leaves, apparently)
-about a shot or two of sugar
-water
Round 1:
a) pour 3 'cups' of water into tea kettle (note: they use shot glasses instead of cups, so when I say a cup, I mean a shot-glass--maybe 1-2shots)
b) add 1 bag of tea (25g)
c) Boil for 15 min
d) add 1/2 cup of sugar
e) mix. mix by pouring some tea into the cup, then pouring the cup back into the tea kettle. repeat several times.
f) serve 3/4 of a cup per person. (serves about 3 or 4 people)
Round 2:
using the same tea as before.....
a) add 3 cups of water
b) boil 12-13min
c) add 1/4 cup of sugar
d) add 2 sprigs of mint
e) mix
f) serve
Round 3:
using same tea/mint as before.....
a) add 2.5 cups of water
b) boil 10min
c) add less than a quarter cup of sugar
d) mix. serve.
