Pour ½ cup (125 ml) boiling water into a teapot. Swirl to rinse and warm-up; discard water.
Sprinkle the Chinese gunpowder green tea into the teapot. Add in ½ cup (125 ml) of boiling water and allow tea to steep for a minute; do not stir. If the teapot does not have a built-in strainer, carefully pour the tea (aka “spirit”) through a fine-mesh strainer into a cup and set aside until needed.
If using an external strainer or sieve, place any tea leaves that the sieve may have caught back into the teapot. Add in ½ cup (60 ml) of boiling water to the teapot. Allow tea to steep for a minute; swirl teapot to rinse leaves.
Pour this liquid over a fine-mesh strainer (if teapot does not have a built-in strainer) into a cup or bowl; discard liquid. Place tea leaves back into the pot.
Roughly tear mint leaves and add to teapot. Sprinkle the Redpath Simply Raw™ Turbinado Sugar over the mint leaves. Add 4 cups (1000 ml) of freshly boiled water over the green tea, fresh mint, and turbinado sugar. Stir gently to dissolve sugar. Cover and steep for 5 minutes.
Gently stir in the reserved tea (“spirit”).
Add 2 or 3 rosebuds to the bottom of each glass or teacup, pour the hot tea (use a strainer, if needed) over the rosebuds in each glass. Garnish tea with fresh mint. Serve immediately.
*Other herbs can be added when adding the mint, if desired, such as rosemary, sage, or lemon verbena.
*If Chinese gunpowder green tea is unavailable, use 1 tablespoon of Chinese green tea and 1 tablespoon of black tea.
*For a stronger tea flavour, add an additional tablespoon (7 grams) of the Chinese gunpowder tea leaves.
You can substitute tea leaves for one tea bag of Chinese green tea and one tea bag of black tea.
*For a more traditional tea, omit rosebuds.
