Thé aux Pignons
Green tea boiled hard with mint and sugar and poured over a spoonful of pine nuts sitting in the glass. The nuts soften as you drink and are eaten at the end.
Photograph credit: The menthe (image of Maghrebi mint tea on Wikidata Q937101) by Nicolas Mailfait · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Before You Start
Boil it, do not steep it. The bitterness is deliberate.
Rinse the leaves first and discard that water.
Pour from a height for the foam — it is how the pour is judged.
How to Make Thé aux Pignons
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Rinse the tea leaves with a splash of boiling water and pour it off immediately. This removes the first, harshest bitterness.
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Add the litre of water to the pot and bring to a rolling boil.
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Boil hard for 5 minutes. This is not steeping — it is meant to be strong and slightly bitter.
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Add the sugar and the mint, pushing the mint under the surface, and boil a further 3 minutes.
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Put a tablespoon of pine nuts into the bottom of each glass.
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Pour the tea from as high as you can manage without spilling, so a head of foam forms on top of each glass.
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Drink very hot and eat the softened pine nuts at the bottom when you finish.
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Why It Works
Tunisian tea is boiled rather than steeped, and boiled hard — which would ruin a delicate green tea and is exactly right here, because the resulting bitterness is what the very large amount of sugar is balanced against. The pouring from a height is not showmanship: it aerates the tea and puts a head of foam on the glass, which Tunisians judge the pour by. The pine nuts go in dry and soften in the hot tea as you drink.
Leftovers, Reheating and Keeping
Make it fresh. Reheated mint tea turns stewed and grey.
Good With
- Makroudh
- Samsa
- Bambalouni
Thé aux Pignons Nutrition Facts
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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