The ahwa — the traditional Egyptian coffeehouse — is one of the great institutions of Cairo life. In Giza's residential neighbourhoods, away from the tourist strip, you find these all-male (by tradition, though less rigidly so than before) establishments on almost every corner: plastic chairs, small metal tables, a television showing football, and men spending hours over a single glass of tea or a cup of coffee, playing backgammon or dominoes and filling the air with shisha smoke.
The ritual is simple: sit down, a glass of heavily sugared tea or a thick Turkish coffee arrives without being asked for, and you are welcome to stay as long as you like. Shisha comes in apple, grape, and fruit-mix flavours and costs almost nothing. For foreigners this is a low-key and entirely unthreatening place to sit and watch Egyptian daily life at its most ordinary and real. Look for the neighbourhood ahwas around the streets near Giza Metro station or anywhere in the university district.