Farhad has been working in one of Tehran’s bazaars for pretty much his entire life. Before him it was his father, before that his grandfather, but the goods have always been the same: dried fruits and nuts, sourced from Iran’s rural, mountainous regions.
He sits behind a table stacked with almonds, pistachios, walnuts, dried apricots, all neatly wrapped and sealed in plastic bags as I walk by, my camera strapped around my shoulder.
“Khosh amadi,” he calls out. Welcome.
He sips from a glass of black tea, motioning to a little wooden stool next to him.
“Bishi,” he says with a kind smile on his face. Sit down.
I have barely sat down when he pulls up an empty glass, pouring boiling tea from his thermos. I take a sip. It’s sweet, flavoured with cardamom, as it so often is in Iran.
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