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A MINT TEA IN CASABLANCA
After walking around the medina and buying two loaves of bread Adam and I go and sit down at an outdoor table at the Brasserie Excelsior, sit watching the traffic and people go by along stately Boulevard Mohammed V. A red-jacketed waiter comes, Adam orders a coffee, and I a mint tea. I want to experience the taste of Morocco. In the medina so many transactions seemed to be taking place over mint tea. We chat a while, I look up at the clocktower of the medina, our drinks come. Adam's coffee is served in a small espresso cup, my tea is in a silver pot, and the waiter places a glass and saucer down, on the saucer there are two cubes of sugar. I decide to forego the sugar, want my mind tea unadulterated. I pour some out into the small glass and take a sip; the tastes of sugar and mint collide in my mouth, this is sweet mint tea, almost sickeningly sweet, yet oddly compelling. I can't tell if I love or hate it. I slowly sip at my glass, eat hunks of bread torn away from the loaf. The sky is blue, the bread is basic, the tea is sweet, the clocktower says a quarter to eleven. A wandering street vendor tries to sell me a Cartier watch for 400 dirham, I bargain him down without meaning to; he finally walks away feigning disgust. The tea is sweet, the sky is still blue, I do not want a watch, I've eaten my bread, Adam's on his second coffee, the tea is still sweet, time takes steps on tiny feet, the sky is as blue as it will ever be, and mint and sugar are colliding in my mouth.
Casablanca
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