Where do you get the best mint tea and café experience?

Mint tea — atay, the sweet, mint-stuffed green tea poured theatrically from a height — is the absolute heart of Moroccan social life, and 'where to get the best' is really a question about setting and ceremony, because the tea itself flows everywhere, constantly, freely. It's the gesture of welcome in every home, shop and riad, the punctuation of every transaction, the reason to sit down for an hour and watch the world. So my answer is less a single café than a collection of unforgettable places to take that glass, and I'd build a few of them into any trip as little rituals.

Café culture in Morocco comes in two flavours, and it's worth knowing the difference. The traditional pavement café — chairs all facing the street, a fog of cigarette smoke, men nursing coffees and teas for hours — is a brilliant institution for people-watching and feeling the rhythm of a place, though I'll be honest that these old-school street cafés are still overwhelmingly male spaces, and solo women may feel conspicuous (perfectly safe, just stared at), so many women travellers prefer the more mixed, modern cafés and the tourist-friendly terraces. Then there's the atmospheric end: rooftop and garden cafés made for lingering over a beautiful pot of tea with a view.

For the great mint-tea moments, here's where I send people. In Marrakech, a rooftop terrace over the medina at golden hour, the Koutoubia glowing — or the legendary garden cafés where you sip among cactus and palms. In Tangier, the storied Café Hafa, terraces tumbling down a cliff above the sea, where writers and musicians have drunk tea for a century watching the Strait of Gibraltar. In Fes, a tiled riad courtyard with a trickling fountain. In Chefchaouen, a tiny café table in a powder-blue lane or a rooftop over the medina. And in the desert, that first glass of tea at a Sahara camp as the sun melts into the dunes — arguably the most magical of all.

A couple of warm practicalities. Mint tea is served very sweet by default, so if you want less sugar, say so when you order, or ask for it 'without sugar' and add your own (in homes it's poured pre-sweetened, and refusing it can mildly offend, so accept at least a glass graciously). Watch the pour — a good server lifts the pot high to aerate the tea and build a little froth, and it's a small performance worth appreciating. And don't rush it: the whole point of mint tea is that it's an invitation to stop, sit and be unhurried, which is, honestly, one of the loveliest things Morocco teaches you.