With the dry heat of the nearby desert, the softness of the handwoven rug beneath my crossed legs, and the total calm of Agdour village outside this home’s rooftop terrace, a cosy lull starts to settle over me. In ’s High Atlas mountains, just over an hour outside , the quiet amplifies every flavour offered by our host, a Berber grandfather named Omar. First, the sharpness of the mint hits my nostrils the moment he douses it in hot water, the fragrant notes intensifying when he pours the steeped tea, with his silver teapot dramatically hovering three feet above the glass.
With two palmfuls of beet sugar dissolved into the pot, the sweetness is potent as I sip (well, slurp, per Omar’s lesson on proper Moroccan tea-drinking etiquette). I tear off a piece of flatbread, baked by Omar’s wife, Naimei, and dip it into olive oil that was pressed in a small stone building I just visited down a nearby alleyway. I didn’t know olive oil could taste so floral.
Nor that this — mint tea and bread, or omelette, with olive oil — is what the Berbers, the Indigenous people of northwest Africa (also known as Imazighen), typically have for breakfast. Until this moment, I didn’t even know this would be what have for breakfast today. There are a lot of things I’m learning as I go, and that was the plan.
A view of host Omar’s home, where the writer’s tour group learned Moroccan tea-drinking etiquette. Or rather, the non-plan. It’s my first time in Marrakech, a bucket-list des.
