The pour is half the ceremony.

He lifted the pot above his head and the tea fell in a long, clean line into the glass. The line did not break. The glass filled without a drop spilled. He did this three times — pour, return, pour — until the foam was right.

Moroccan mint tea is gunpowder green, fresh spearmint, and an aggressive amount of sugar. It is the tea you are given when you arrive somewhere, when you are about to leave somewhere, when you have agreed to buy something, and when you have decided you will not. The pour is from a height because the height makes the foam, and the foam is the point. [^1]

Below the roof, the tanneries: white and red and yellow vats, men standing in them up to their thighs. The smell was the smell. The mint, blessedly, won.

He poured a second glass and then a third. I did not refuse any of them.

[^1]: Three glasses, the proverb says: the first is bitter like life, the second strong like love, the third gentle like death.