Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons dehydrated peppermint leaves
- 2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon dehydrated stevia leaves
- 2 cups boiling water
Instructions
- Work the cocoa into a teaspoon of cold water in the bottom of the cup first. Dry cocoa tipped into hot water floats as a skin of powder and refuses to wet through.
- Keep the peppermint and stevia in a basket or a bag rather than loose. You will be stirring this cup repeatedly, and loose leaf ends up in your mouth.
- Add the boiling water to the paste and whisk it, then lower the infuser in. The order matters — the cocoa needs that turbulence and the leaf would only get in the way of it.
- Steep fifteen minutes, stirring once or twice along the way. Cocoa settles fast, and an unstirred cup goes from rich to watery halfway down.
- Lift the infuser out rather than leaving it sitting there. Peppermint past this point turns from cool to harsh and starts numbing rather than refreshing.
- Stir again before each mouthful, or accept a sludge at the bottom. There is no way around that with cocoa powder and no point pretending otherwise.
- Keep the peppermint and stevia blended in a jar but add the cocoa fresh each time. Cocoa fat goes stale, and it will pass that staleness on to any leaf sitting beside it.
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