So many of you are curious about Russian tea habits. Here are some Russian tea traditions. Please keep in mind that Russia is a large country with many regional customs, so some traditions and methods will differ. As always, none of the links are affiliate links. We do not earn money if you buy a samovar at Amazon, heh.
Tea.
Russians discovered tea in 16th century, when Ivan the Terrible sent two Cossack atamans (war chiefs), Petrov and Yalychov to Siberia with a decree to “unknown peoples” who might be living there. They made it to the sea, passed through Mongolia, and reached China. Whether or not tea was a part of this expedition remains hotly debated by Russian historians, but it is clear that there was an eventual establishment of diplomatic ties between Russia and China, and in 1618 Czar Mihail Fiodorovich Romanov was presented with several crates of tea by the Chinese delegation. Russian word for tea, “Чай,” phonetically spells out chai.
At first tea was viewed as a medicinal drink, but it quickly gained popularity, and by the end of 17th century everyone was drinking it. By 19th century, tea was a big deal. Strict laws were enacted to prevent sale of contraband tea and banning production of koporskii tea, made from fireweed. Koporskii tea tasted kind of nasty, but if you messed with it enough, in a dry state it looked like real tea, so unscrupulous merchants would cut real tea with it.
In the 20th century, a lot of tea in USSR was either home grown or imported from India and Ceylon. Eventually, due to economic difficulties, those imports dried up and so did the consumption of tea. Now it has picked back up and Russian tea market is the fourth largest by volume, right behind China, India, and Turkey. Most of the tea in Russia comes from India, then Sri-Lanka, then China and Indonesia. They keep trying to grow tea in the Krasnodar region, but it accounts for less than 1% of all tea consumed.
Russians drink 10 times as much black tea as green tea, and the green tea still throws a lot of them for a loop. During her first career, my mother was an engineer working for a company designing an anti-missile system. She and her coworkers ended up viewing the tests of the prototype, and the military put them into some old barracks. It was like camping out in a cabin.
One day they all went to the view the tests, and the weather was bad and cold, so they send one guy back ahead of time to make hot tea. He found the tea, but accidentally grabbed the green tea someone had instead of the black tea. So he brews a kettle of this tea and it’s the wrong color. Being an engineer, he concludes that this tea is weak and solves this problem by adding more tea and more tea, until he gets the nice brown color he wants.
The team returns, takes some nice swallows of said tea and then they all have heart palpitations and a spirited debate regarding whether or not they need to go to the hospital.
Tea Equipment
Traditional tea preparation involves zavarka, very strong concentrated tea brewed in a tea pot, which is then diluted by boiled water to the desired strength. Children get weaker tea, adults get stronger tea.
This is where the traditional Russian samovars came into play. They are basically low-tech electric kettles designed to boil water and then keep it warm for hours. First samovars used coal, now they are electric. You can see the one below comes with a matching removable tea pot.
Samovars are pretty, but not practical, because they are a pain to clean.
In the pre USSR times, tea was drank in pretty cups, which were always served with a deep saucer dish. Tea was frequently poured into the saucer and drank from it because it cooled faster.
The tea I remember was served in cups at our house. On a train and in a school cafeteria, tea came in glasses, often with a podstakannik, a metal holder.
The glass is removable and easily washed.
Tea is usually sweetened with sugar, more rarely with honey. Honey was more expensive and less readily available. Sometimes lemon was served, but lemons were also a bit of a luxury. Some people mix in preserves. Very few people drink it unsweetened. Milk is usually a no and will get you funny looks.
Indian spiced chai was not a thing in Russia when I left. Most of the times I can’t drink it. It doesn’t taste right to my palate. Neither is adding bergamot, and I can only tolerate it in small amounts. It works in London Fog from Harney’s but not in Earl Grey for me.
Tea is a ritual. In my house, tea was typically consumed at breakfast, with some fruit and sandwiches with bologna or whatever sausage we had handy. You drank your tea and took off for school.
Tea must be consumed hot enough to nip at the roof of your mouth.
Medicinal properties
This is legend and folklore, so please don’t take it as a medical advice.
Hot tea with a couple of teaspoons of raspberry preserves in it will quickly break a fever. Right now I am not feeling that hot – I haven’t felt that hot all week – and I drank some this morning.
Tea with shipovnik, rosehips, is considered to boost immune system and improve kidney function but is counter indicated for anyone with stomach acid related issues. We would drive out once a year and gather our own rosehips from the edges of the farm fields where it grew like a weed.
In case of conjunctivitis, Russian mothers brew very strong tea, let it cool, and wash the eyes out by dipping a cotton pad into the tea and gently pressing it to the eye. I can confirm that conjunctivis does seem to go away at record rate with this treatment.
To be honest, most health issues in Russia are treated with tea. Headache – tea. Fever – tea. Broken arm – tea. Tea is the way.
Happy brewing.
My mom is in Serbia and she has tea for every organ. I like only camomile with honey and lemon
Hehehe- a tea for every organ ????, love this.
Thanks ???? totally true she picks and grows them. She even made a little notebook what tea is for what
Have you ever had the chance to go back and/or plan to?
This is a very complex issue.
What if I go and they refuse to release me? Even though I am a citizen of United States, what if I am suddenly found with narcotics on my person? If I am lucky, a bribe might fix it, but it might not. What if something I said online is problematic, and by entering the country I draw attention to myself or my father and my step-mother? What if there is something mysteriously wrong with my passport and they decide to detain me for a few weeks?
Why would I risk it?
That is scary, and sad all rolled up into nope, not chancing it.
It is good to be wary even now. Growing up my grandfather always said none of us can visit Lithuania, they would kill us if they saw our name and he refused to teach my mum, uncles and aunt the language. The USSR had a heavy hand and have cast a long shadow.
This is real but so sad. There are way too many people around the world who can’t safely go home again.
My Swedish grandmother had the same medical uses for tea. She too preferred black tea. Thanks for the happy memories!
Thank you for sharing that! I was very interested in the preserves in tea. I love tea and learning about different tea practices. I also believe that tea can be very medicinal. ????
I’m not feeling so hot this week either. But I do take my tea with half and half. 🙂 I used to like bergamot, but it’s too strong these days. A hint is good, Earl Gray is overkill.
Feel better soon.
For my Scottish grandmother, the doctor always prescribed tea and toast when they were under the weather. Sometimes I’ll have an herbal “tea” instead with some ground pepper in it.
If nothing else, tea is always good for the soul. I really like hearing different tea traditions!
My eldest daughter and I collect those kinds of home remedies….
My Puerto Rican mother-in-law: J&J baby cream. Fever-baby cream. Constipation-baby cream+nap+slightly older first cousin to read you until you took said nap. Broken arm-baby cream with ace bandage.
My mother (Trinidadian+Barbardian grandmother, and adolescence in England just after WWII). Outside problem-witch hazel….bruises, broken bones, rashes, sprains, ingrown hairs. Except chicken pox–that got calamine lotion.
Internal problem — Specialized Tea. Anemia/low energy- Beef, Iron and Wine Tea. “Stomach problems” (anything from menstrual cramps to stomach cancer) “Bush Tea”(don’t ask). Constipation – Senna tea (take Stephen King’s unedited version of The Stand with you to the bathroom). you get the picture.
Too funny. That book will always remind me of my college years, but for different reasons 😀 .
I always thought someone could get through War and Peace or a James Clavell book after taking Senna tea. If Stephen King’s unedited version of The Stand will do, sure. 🙂
Just make sure no one else needs to use the bathroom if it’s the only one in the place. 😀
Cool; thanks for the insight.
Ilona, LOVED this! Brought so many of the extremely complicated (to my poor brain, in comprehensible!) but beloved tea rituals my host family did with me daily! I lived in northern Russia in 1993, crazy time to be there but I adored it—problem was, I only had 2 semesters of Russian language before landing there, and they helpfully put me in the Russian literature department none of whom spoke one whisper of English, so I was lost and drowning in that beautiful but hard language! Made friends with the profs in their English language department and got a tiny fluent! But yeah I adored the tea making rituals! My host family was native Komi, so it was a little different but not much. Such joyous memories—thank you!!!????????????????
Here is some of my hokhloma—
Beautiful!
Thank you. That was so interesting! ????
Thank you, Ilona Andrews for the post.
I ROFLOL and LMAO. My father and paternal family were/ are hot tea drinkers. Mother and her family are hot coffee drinkers. So my siblings and I learned to make both growing up. However none of us are coffee drinkers as adults.
Our tastes run the tea gauntlet from A to Z as second sibling went around the world with military and sent home a different tea every Christmas. We sent Charleston sc plantation grown black tea back. ????
Thank you for the info.
Table of eight people at college formal dinner dance. Wait staff comes around after dinner, “how many for coffee?”, seven people ask for coffee, one person asks for tea. That one person? Me.
Got Lipton tea bag with a lemon slice and a cute little pot with hot water. Still prefer tea, not a coffee drinker….????
Lipton tea in restaurants is why I carry zip lock baggies with my favorite teas.
My brother was travelling around Darjeeling a few years ago and went to a specialist tea plantation. They tasted all of the locally grown products and he said they were amazing. At then end the guide was very excited to share a ‘special’ tea with them – not local – an expensive, imported one. Very special.
It was Lipton and apparently even more terrible than my brother remembered it being from when we’ve been to the states (I always travel with my own teabags if going to the US)
Interesting! My Chinese mom would also solve conjunctivitis with a tea compress, although she used a chrysanthemum tea always. And yes it always helped. I’m wondering if the warmth and moist compress helps your eyes fight it off.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326300#benefits
Apparently warm tea bags for dry eyes and styes. Cold for pink eye, red eyes, shrinking bags under the eyes (sliced cucumber works too) and minor eye injuries
What an amazing and fun post!!
I had an Irish friend who said he liked tea “strong enough for a mouse to trot across the top.” He had lots of tea sayings … like “that’s about as useful as a chocolate tea pot.”
I love tea and learning about different customs..
Wonderful post! I love hearing about tea traditions and personal favorites.
Tea story: I went out to a dim sum lunch with coworkers, and my coworker who emigrated from Hong Kong (and loves dim sum!) was ready to help us order.
The waitress arrives, hands out little menus and there’s a brief exchange in Chinese. She departs.
Mystified, we ask – what did she say?
Oh, she was asking what kind of tea we wanted.
!!!
It’s like a secret menu: Chinese restaurants often have several kinds of tea, but only those in the know are asked which they want.
So what kind did you order? we asked.
It turns out she always orders the same kind her father liked, who passed away when she was a child, and who loved taking his family out for a leisurely dim sum lunch on Sundays.
In Outer Mongolia I got hooked on a tea my hosts made. Black tea shaved off a brick of tea, milk and of all things, salt!! Called milk cha. I have never been able to copy it once back in the states. Always end up with salty tea????
Some places in the South they serve what I lovingly call Hummingbird Tea. That is cold tea, but so super sweet that hummingbirds would love it. 🙂 I usually have to add water to dilute it. At that point it’s easier to just get a soda. Probably less sugar too. 🙂
I’m Greek, and our cure all for everything was Camomile Tea…. headache, stomach ache, cuts… drink Camomile Tea ????????
The loose leaf flowers – never in a tea bag and always bought from a Greek delicatessen ????
Many readers have referred to chamomile tea. Chamomile tea is bad for people who are allergic to ragweed. The results can range from mild to life threatening ( anaphylaxis). Ironically, I found out that the health food store was bad for my health. There are also other foods that you should avoid if you have “hay fever” or ragweed allergies. Check with Google for list.
This is interesting. I’m allergic to ragweed, but I drink chamomile tea all the time and have never had an issue. I have cross allergies with tree nuts and some stone fruits though.
Grew up drinking tea in the British style. My Polish parents would occasionally make tea in the Russian style during the winter when there was a few feet of snow outside (Great Lakes – Ontario and Erie) after shoveling the driveway. It consisted of brewed black tea poured into a tall glass over a teaspoon and then adding honey and lemon.
Interesting day for this topic. Made a pot of Republic of Tea Chai this morning (have not been drinking much black tea). I drink it sweetened, but without milk. I do love their version of Chai … has black pepper and coriander as well as the usual cinnamon and ginger.
And in a pinch, it makes a very good seasoning blend for roast chicken (learned that on a camping trip).
Thank you for sharing the tea information.
I like chai and I like it spicy — black pepper adds just the right bite. I will try this brand. I have been enjoying the store organic brand of chai in tea bags (O Organics) from Albertsons/Tom Thumb.
Tea has always been my caffeinated drink of choice. I cannot abide coffee, even in chocolate or ice cream. I also greatly dislike bergamot and won’t drink Earl Grey even if there is no other tea available.
My grandfather (Norwegian descent; I don’t know if it’s cultural) drank tea and had tins of loose tea. He would fix tea for me when we visited and we would drink it together. This is probably what set me up with tea for life. He died when I was five and I remember us doing this when I was as young as three.
Because tea has always been considered healthful even in parts of the U.S., I was allowed to drink tea even as a kid. My brother was not allowed to drink coffee regularly until he was 16. When we were sick and stuck at home, sick food was toast, lightly buttered, and weak tea with a little sugar. I have drunk tea with no sugar, with sugar, with milk and sugar, and with milk and no sugar at varying times in my life. I am now going to explore tea with jam.
Thank you for this post about Russian tea practices. I really enjoyed it.
Never really liked coffee or black tea. Black tea has to be super weak – a few dunks of a tea bag in the water. Green tea is good. I love most herbal teas though with peppermint being my favorite. No add ins.
Fun post – thanks!
Have you read the Duchess’s 50 Tea Recipes manhua? I think you’d enjoy it, I think it’s on Tapas.
Tea story. Ten years ago, I went to a Korean spa located in suburban Baltimore, built next to a defunct mall. It is not there any more. There was a men’s side and a women’s side. In the women’s side, there was a large heated soaking pool with a floating herbal tea bouquet in the center, steeping. The steaming water was brown and tea-colored. I was instructed to strip and soak myself for 20 minutes before my energizing body scrub (this treatment was their signature spa experience). The tea soak softened my skin so it could more easily be scrubbed away, including skin tags (tmi?). The scrub treatment was sort of dehumanizing, I was turned and scrubbed while I lay on a big vinyl table. Worth all the uncomfortable novelty was the final two minutes, when the scrubbing tech poured pitchers of warm clear water onto me to rinse me clean, the way we pour cups of bath water on a baby. I have never had a chance to tell anyone about this remarkable experience.
That reminds me of my one and only visit to a Korean bathhouse, in Seoul. We were brave, and signed up for the massage. The massage ladies asked if I was Russian! Understandable, maybe, as I’m as white as can be, but I’m also pretty short.
Our family rode the Trans-Siberian Railway in the spring of 1973, as part of a rail trip from Nakhodka to Helsinki. Tea was served with every meal, with a recommended sweetener of strawberry jam. (I developed a home recipe for Russian tea ice cream as an homage to the experience.) One day when my then six-year-old brother caught a bad cold and had to miss meal service, the concerned chef gave us tea with lemons, which were indeed an unbelievable luxury then, imported from California. I was left with a lasting impression of a people who valued children more than anyone else we’d met in our travels.
My Grandmother would insist we drink tea on our feast day, Catholic saints day you were named after. So for me it would be feasts of St Catherine, of which there are 3. She would make me what she called ginger tea which was weak tea with lots of milk and sugar. She made it “pale as heaven and sweet as sin”.
Jasmine tea with sugar♡
Thank you, this was lovely.
My mother told me there is a saying from the panhandle of Texas “it ain’t been saucered and blowed yet” — that is, it’s nearly ready. Comes from the idea one would pour one’s tea into the saucer and blow on it to cool it down.
My favorite tea is Good Earth Sweet & Spicy.
Reminds me of my first time drinking tea the Russian way. It was my first visit to meet my then-boyfriend’s beloved babushka, so of course I wanted to make the very best impression.
She was a retired arts journalist from Leningrad, the kind of woman who still smoked in her 80s, walked a mile a day for her health, and knew Baryshnikov from back when. Her tiny apartment was full of books and pictures and pairs. I was totally terrified of screwing up.
So when she offered me many, many cups of incredibly strong tea, paired with preserves and chocolate candies from her neighbor Sveta’s old factory in Ukraine…I mean, what could I do? I just kept drinking the tea, and adding more preserves, and accepting yet another chocolate. I didn’t want to be rude. And also, the tea with jam was delicious. I was there for 90 min and must have drank at least 4 cups of tea and eaten ten candies.
Fifteen min after we left, I had unstoppable caffeine/sugar jitters and desperately needed a bathroom. Unfortunately, it was an hour’s drive home, in a midwest winter, with no public toilets on the way.
I learned to be careful about Russian tea the hard way.
I was a Russian linguist in the US Army, back in the 70s, stationed in Germany. A British Command Sgt Maj. was visiting our base, getting briefings from the various units. When he came to ours, my commanding officer asked me to make tea for him, as he knew I drank more tea than coffee. I had a proper teapot, English Breakfast loose tea, proper teacups and a nice tray. When I brought it into the meeting room, the visitor looked up, and sighed. I got out the strainer, poured him a cup, and let him fix it as he liked. After a sip, he sighed again, but more happily, and said, “Thank God. Real tea” Apparently, the other units had been giving him Lipton, brewed weak!
I haven’t thought about that Russian tea mix for ages. Many years ago I made copious amounts of that and hot chocolate mix for Christmas gifts.
I was cold at work last week. I am not a coffee drinker, so I was reduced to hot water, a chocolate candy bar, and vanilla coffee creamer. It worked and warmed me up nicely. We won’t discuss the odd look I got from the cook.
A thought on Conjunctivitis – tannins are a natural antibacterial, antifungal, and insecticide. It may actually be helping clear up whatever infection has taken place.
There are communities that use gallnut powder, another type and source of tannin as a toothpaste for these reasons.
Disclaimer – Not a doctor, just a fibre and dye artist
Your comments and pictures actually reminded me of Ankara Turkey in the 1970s. I actually bought a Russian samovar there (it was stamped 1917 with the Czar’s head) and I used it to make tea. the coal that goes in the samovar must be soft coal, like they had in Turkey. When I brought it back to the United States, the common charcoal briquets in a bag (Kingsford?) burned too hot for the samovar.
The Turkish samovars in the bazaar were all square looking, but the Russian samovar was rounded, as in your picture.
I now use my electric kettle and small pot of very strong tea, which I drink from small cups so it doesn’t get cold. Then I pore more from the small pot and add hot water from the electric kettle (so like I did in Turkey). This way I don’t have to use the microwave. I don’t have my Russian samovar anymore, I moved too many times, and I cleaned it once with Tarnax (a mistake-too strong).
By the way, as I’m writing this on my mobile home deck, a dolphin is swimming around my seawall. I wondered why the fish were jumping out of the water.
I live in St. Petersburg, 2 miles from Madeira Beach and the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1975, October, I was in Saint Petersburg, Soviet Union (it had a different name I think) and we were being shown Peter’s palace. It was snowing and coming in through those enormous doors with the snow trying to blow in made me think of the movie Dr. Zhivago. Although St. Petersburg had the Hermitage and smiling people, the things to see in Moskva (Red Square) were, I think, more impressive.
Thank you for the little snapshot from your deck! I was on the phone with an editor once when a big buck walked past the window in front of my desk. I apologized for saying, “Whoa!” but she thanked me for the visual. Meanwhile this morning we have 6″ of new powder on everything, absolutely lovely, but it’s 25F and the wind is picking up. I want to be where you are.
The city used to be called Leningrad. It was changed back after Soviet Union collapsed
In Switzerland, the breakfast drink is 1/2 milk and 1/2 coffee. Everyone drinks it even the kids. It was a shock to me when I visited relatives in the 1970’s.
As an avid loose-leaf tea drinker, this post pretty much rocked. Learned something new about Russia today. Thanks!
Thank you – very interesting. Last time I bought tea from my local tea/coffee shop, I actually had a discussion with them about russian tea habits because I was so curious after your last comment about preserve in tea.
I did try it out – putting regular raspberry jam in my indian black plain tea, and it tasted fine although all the seeds left in the cup was a bit odd. I might try some other kind of preserve.
You might want to try seedless raspberry jam if you can find it.
That poor Russian engineer who thought the tea was deficient – I can’t! 😀
My parents are from Poland and when we visited, black tea was always served in glasses with metal holders. The benefit is that glasses cool faster, too. I thought it was so exotic and fancy.
We drank black tea at home too, with lemon and sugar. Lots of sugar. I was allowed to start when I was nine or ten, and since my parents didn’t really supervise me, I quickly devolved into putting 5 teaspoons of sugar into one mug of tea. Super healthy. xD I couldn’t drink it now. Hate black tea, only drink herbal and some green – unsweetened.
I presently am Covid positive and an in isolation. I am craving the healing tea my mom use to make. Black tea boiled with ginger and black pepper and heavily sweetened. This was given to us in large mugs as we snuggled under the blankets or large woollen shawl.
Hope you feel better soon!
Feel better! Sometimes I add black peppercorns to my tea. Yum!!!
Thank you for your story.
As an estonian, I can only add, that when fireweed leaves are fermented correctly, this kind of tisane tastes really good and is a good immunity booster. Here we call it Ivan chai!
Happy tea moments, and raspberry together with black currant is even better for me. Treats various colds like a charm and is very tasty.
My go-to is English breakfast tea with milk, no sugar. Perfect! And also Southern brewed sweet tea, as I live in Atlanta.
I don’t know about those other remedies, but there might be something to the rosehip tea. Rosehip have a very high amount of vitamin C, though it does denature at the high temperatures needed to brew tea.
Ah tea. It was the same back home in Romania. Feeling sick? Tea. Eye hurts? Chamomile tea on a cotton pad. Coughing? Onion tea (the most vile thing ever). I drank tea made from the weirdest things because I had severe asthma as a kid and every mom and grandma had some weird recipe they would swear would cure me and I was made to test it each time.
I drink tea almost every day in the winter even now as an adult. I drink liters of tea whenever I get a cold and have about 50 types in my house at all times. My Norwegian fiance thinks I’m crazy.
Bonus fact: the Romanian word for tea is also “ceai” which sounds identical to the chai tea Americans as so fond of. I was somewhat confused in the beginning about the “tea tea” option
That’s the first time I have ever heard of onion tea. I agree it sounds vile.
It sounds almost as bad as a home remedy I use to make called firewater. It was hot water, vinegar (usually apple cider vinegar), a little table salt, and cayenne pepper. The cayenne was to taste. My mom drank that with about a tablespoon of cayenne pepper in it when her throat would get sore and close up. It works, but it tastes really vile.
Fascinating! I first tried Russian Caravan tea while in a London tea shop as a wee college student and it totally, utterly captivated me. I have always, will always, love tea. How could you not? Dina’s line about tea of some sort being culturally unifying is something I think about often. Especially since my husband and I are starting a tea farm on our back 5 acres ???? and in fact, our best performing plants are originally from Sochi
All the tea info and comments have been so interesting! I prefer coffee but I have about 7-8 different teas in my life at all times as you never know when I’ll want one. I have to admit, while loose leaf is generally better tasting, I’m also too lazy to use it very often. If you want to try a tasty black tea that doesn’t ever seem to get too bitter, Dilmah from Sri Lanka is very nice. It’s my go to for an unflavored tea. They do make a bunch of fruit flavored ones, but I’ve never tried any.
And tannic acid has long been known to have both anti bacterial and anti viral properties, so it doesn’t surprise me that so many cultures have used tea for so many different medical conditions.
We put used tea bags on horses eyelids when they are puffy, but not enough to warrent a call to the vet. Any yeah, it does seem to help clear it up faster than not!
Fascinating! I have never heard of putting preserves in tea but I am definitely going to try it. Having married into a Japanese and Chinese family I do want to say that unsweetened tea is definitely the east Asian way. I drink coffee in the morning and fruity herbal tea at night.
Спасибо огромное! An article that beautifully explains tea to my non-Russian husband and why my family loves it so much
Random trivia and Scrabble word time. I am pretty sure that a podstakannik is called a zarf in English. Lots of points and weird looks when you olay that word
I went to Russia in the early ’70s on a school choir trip. We went to Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev. I remember the big samovars of tea on a breakfront at the end of the corridor in the hotel. I found that so interesting.
I also remember Russia (It was USSR at the time) as being an architecturally beautiful country, with a rich complex history that was fascinating. The museums that we visited and the arts venues we attended were amazing. And the people were always genuinely warm and friendly. I have some lovely memories of that trip.