The story
Welcome to Akbat Sbaa. You are standing on a street whose name translates to the Slope of the Lion, and as you begin your descent, you can feel the gravity of history pulling at your heels. This is one of the steepest arteries of Fes el-Bali, a narrow stone vein that pumps life down toward the industrial heart of the medieval city.
As you walk, notice how the ancient houses seem to lean toward one another overhead, nearly blotting out the Moroccan sun, creating a cool, shadowed tunnel that resonates with the echoes of passing donkeys and the rhythmic call of shopkeepers. The air here begins to change as you move lower. It grows thick and heavy with a scent that is unmistakable, a pungent mix of salt, ammonia, and ancient earth.
The lanes here drop toward the Chouara tanneries, where hides have been cured in stone vats of pigeon-lime and saffron, by hand, for some nine hundred years. You are approaching a place that has remained virtually unchanged since the 11th century, a living workshop that predates many of the world’s modern nations. When you reach the viewing balconies overlooking Chouara, the scale of the operation reveals itself like a giant, earthen honeycomb.
Hundreds of round stone vessels are sunken into the ground, filled with liquids of every hue. The white vats contain a potent mixture of water, salt, and pigeon droppings. The ammonia in the lime softens the tough hides, preparing them to drink in the vibrant dyes that fill the neighboring pits.
Look closely and you will see the tanners, men whose families have held these spots for generations, standing waist-deep in the fluids, massaging the leather with their bare feet. The colors you see are not the product of modern chemicals but of the Moroccan landscape itself. The brilliant yellows come from crushed saffron or pomegranate husks.
The deep reds are born from poppy flowers, the blues from indigo, and the earthy browns from the bark of cedar trees. This is the source of the world-famous Fassi leather, a material so soft and durable that for centuries the word cordwainer—a fine shoemaker—was derived from the name of the city’s Spanish cousins, inspired by the techniques perfected right here in these pits. As you stand here, breathe through the sprig of fresh mint that the locals often hand out to visitors.
It is a sensory bridge between the harshness of the work below and the beauty of the finished product. Akbat Sbaa and the Chouara Tanneries represent the soul of Fes—a city that refuses to let go of the human hand’s power to transform the raw into the exquisite. When you eventually turn to climb back up the slope, you aren't just leaving a workplace; you are stepping out of a thousand-year-old rhythm that continues to pulse beneath the stones of the Medina.