What teas and tisanes does Morocco use?

No drink defines Morocco like mint tea, and no ritual reveals more about the country. The classic is "atay" — gunpowder green tea (tightly rolled leaves), brewed strong with a generous fistful of fresh spearmint and a frankly heroic amount of sugar. But the recipe is almost secondary to the performance: the tea poured from height in a thin glittering stream into small glasses, partly to aerate it and crown it with foam, partly for sheer theatre. The first glass is poured back into the pot and re-poured; the saying goes that the three servings are "gentle as life, strong as love, bitter as death." I never tire of watching it made.

But Morocco is far from a one-tea country, and the tisanes are where it gets interesting, especially seasonally. In the cold months, mint often gives way to sheeba — wormwood, a silvery-grey artemisia with a bracing, slightly bitter, camphorous edge that locals swear warms you from the inside. Verbena (louiza) makes a soothing lemony infusion much loved in the evening; sage (salmia) is brewed for digestion and comfort; and absinthe-like herbs, dried lavender, and other garden plants all find their way into the pot depending on the household and the weather.

Then there are the dressed-up versions. On cold days or special occasions you may be served tea spiced with cinnamon, or infused with a thread of saffron, or scented with a drop of orange blossom water. In the south, around the desert and Berber villages, I have been handed tea so loaded with herbs it was almost a soup, and in winter mountain homes a steaming glass of sheeba pressed into my hands the moment I crossed the threshold. Each region and family has its own habit.

For the traveller, the thing to understand is that tea is not really about thirst — it is about hospitality and time. Refusing the glass offered to you is close to refusing friendship, and the unhurried ritual of brewing and pouring is the host saying "stay, sit, we are in no rush." Accept it, sip slowly, and let it be sweeter and slower than you would choose. That, far more than the leaves in the pot, is the real Moroccan tea experience.