If you had asked us before we came to Istanbul what drink we expected to find here, we would have said Turkish coffee. Perhaps because our favourite Turkish restaurants in the US and the UK offer it at the end of meals. We’ll say something soon about Turkish coffee, but today we want to talk about the drink that seems to us to be much more characteristic of the Istanbullus – Turkish tea!
Now it so happens that both of us are tea drinkers. (John will sometimes drink coffee but usually only if there’s something good added to it, like chocolate.) So we were happy to find a large variety of tea products in the store on our first day here. But even we, inveterate tea-bibbers, goggle at the ubiquity of tea and its accoutrements in Turkey.
The people here drink tea (çay, pronounced ‘chai’) at all hours of the day and night. While engaging in any activity: sitting with friends, playing cards or backgammon, reading the paper, or running a shop. And lots of people drink their tea after meals. Even if you don’t, they will probably bring you some, unbidden. Because the offering of tea is a social gesture of welcome, it’s bad manners to refuse.
Turkey grows about a tenth of the world’s tea, and consume most of it domestically. Per capita they drink more tea than anyone, anywhere. It’s strong and black, occasionally served diluted (though we’ve never succeeded in ordering it this way). Markets and bazaars are crammed full of various teapots, some of amazing beauty, not the ceramic teapots familiar to us, but metal. And they come in a set of two (called a çaydanlık), with a small pot nestled on top of a larger one. You boil the water on the lower one and you steep the tea in the upper one. You can adjust the strength of the tea according to your taste. These are literally everywhere: even the security guard at the metro stop has his own hot plate and tea set.
Turkish tea comes not in a cup but in a small tulip-shaped glass with a small saucer. The tea reaches almost to the top, leaving a space only about the width of a (small) finger. Sugar cubes accompany the tea, but not milk or lemon. The glass, naturally, is hot, so you have to pick it up with two fingers at the very top. This takes some getting used to. We can’t count the number of Turks who have solemnly assured us that this is the only proper way to drink tea: all other ways let it get cold too soon. (Herodotus talks somewhere about every culture thinking its own customs the best…)
Our favourite part of all this is seeing boys and men bustling about delivering Turkish tea to merchants desirous of taking a tea break. They carry one or two or a dozen glasses of tea (plus spoons and sugar) on a round metal tray suspended from three supports and carried at the top. Despite the crunch of people and their speed, we have never seen them spill a drop!
Also, a word on apple tea: tourists love it (we do too!), but it’s not traditionally Turkish. It’s delicious, though, always served pre-sweetened. Slightly more traditional – but nothing is as prevalent as the genuine article – are sage and oregano teas. We’ll call those an acquired taste, but they’re worth a try.
All of this has been utterly wonderful: we’ve discovered a lot of new occasions suitable for tea-drinking. The one down side is that we sometimes find ourselves wide awake in the middle of the night, buzzing from all the caffeine. Still, it’s a small price to pay.
