Story and taste
When tea first arrived in Morocco in the 1850s through British merchants, Moroccan hands transformed it from a foreign curiosity into a national ritual. They added great fistfuls of fresh spearmint the na'na that grows wild in every Atlas garden - and unapologetic amounts of sugar. The pouring from height, the silver berrad, the foam crown on the glass: these are Moroccan inventions. To refuse a glass of atay in a Moroccan home is to refuse the household's welcome itself. There is a saying: 'The first glass is for life, the second for love, the third for death.' Hospitality in Morocco is measured in glasses poured, and the time between them is the unhurried measure of friendship.