A trip to turkey is not complete without drinking copious amounts of tea. Tea is everywhere you look and feels like it is coded into a Turks DNA to drink tea all day, every day.
Surprisingly, Turkish Tea has only become popular after World War II as a replacement to coffee because coffee was becoming too expensive. Turkey first began its journey with tea by importing it from China. The word Çay stems from the Chinese word for tea “Cha”.
When Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created the Republic of Turkey after the demise of the Ottoman Empire, they looked for a more sustainable solution due to the influx of tea drinking. in 1937, Ataturk began the first tea plantations in the Black Sea Region of Rize because it had the perfect temperature to grow and harvest the black tea.
Turks drink more tea per capita than even china at this point and average about 7 lbs per year per person which equals out to about 10 cups of tea per day. ( I can totally attest to this being true because I have been know to have downed WAY more than that sometimes during a day!)
The beautiful attribute about Turkish Black tea is that it does not get bitter the longer it sits in water. For example, if you were to make a pot of English breakfast tea or Earl Grey Black tea, the tea would get bitter after about 7-10 min. Not so with Turkish black tea, it only gets BETTER the longer it sits in its pot.
It is also brewed differently than black tea in other parts of the world. Turks use a double tea pot: top pot for concentrated tea, bottom pot for hot water. It is best if it has “rested” for at least 20-30 minutes. What does that mean? Well, it means that once you pour over hot water in to the top tea pot over the leaves, the tea needs to rest in the water for full strength for at least 30 min before it’s ready to be served.
It is completely normal to find a double tea pot on a low simmer at any place of business, home, everywhere all day long. It is one of the main elements of Turkish Hospitality.
- Go do some banking, the banker will ask you if you want some tea.
- Go do some rug shopping at the bazaar, the rug guy will send a young boy out to get some tea.
- A Neighbors house? Tea is a must!
It’s considered an insult to refuse tea, so make sure you get ready to get your tea drinking in wherever you go!
Even though, Turks drink predominantly black tea, there is a HUGE selection of herbals. However, herbal tea in turkey is drunk mainly as medicinal. Fennel tea at night for digestion; Linden tea in the winter for cold relief; Mixed fruit tea to boost immunity with its high Vitamin C content.
At Kahve Cafe, we are slowly bringing all the different Turkish teas to the US. Sold in 50 gr bags or in bulk, we now have about 8 different varieties of tea and the list keeps growing!
- Apple Cinnamon Clove Tea
- Mixed Fruit Tea: Dried Lemon, Dried Orange, Dried Apple, Hibiscus flowers
- Istanbul tea: Dried Apple, Rose Hips, Hibiscus, Dried orange peel, cinnamon, rose buds, dried strawberry, golden grass flowers
- Energy Tea: Dried Apples, red peppercorns, cardamom, star anise, dried sage, dried orange
- Sultan’s tea: Ceylon Tea, cardamom, pomegranate blossom, jasmine flower
- Love Tea: Rose Hips, Apple, cinnamon, Dried strawberry, Red Rose, pomegranate flowers, jasmine flowers
- Green tea, Mint, dried Lemon
- Turkish Black tea
Stop in and try them today or order a bag online and let us ship some to you!
