Experience the drinking culture in Türkiye

/Thuy Duong – News Newspaper [Mittalteas]/

Every country has its own tea culture. Turkey also has its own unique tea culture, and the country’s tea-drinking culture has just been included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO on December 1, 2022.

Turks make tea using a Caydanlik consisting of two teapots stacked on each other and drink tea in tulip-shaped cups. Photo: goturkiye

Tea is not just a drink or an emotion that awakens the senses and nerves. Drinking tea (“çay” in Turkish) is how many people in this country start their day.

It can be affirmed that tea is an indispensable part of Turkish culture and is the most popular hot drink. Like many countries, inviting guests to drink tea is a cultural feature that shows Turkish hospitality. Whose house you visit, which store you go into, wherever you attend the gathering, the thing you are invited to enjoy the most will be tea.

People unfamiliar with Turkey may think that coffee is the national drink. But not so! Turks like to sip tea from morning to night and then continue until bedtime, and in Turkey, there is never a time when it is considered harmful to drink tea. Inviting and drinking tea is a way to show friendship.

In every workplace or home, you will always find a pot of tea available to drink or serve to guests. When visiting a Turkish house, the default is that guests will always be offered tea, must finish the first cup, and can leave the second cup unfinished. By law, there must be two breaks during the day for employees to drink tea. Offering guests a cup of tea is customary, and refusing it is unheard of.

Tea fields in Rize – the largest and most famous tea-growing place in Türkiye. Photo: Getty Images

Drinking tea is deeply ingrained in Turkish culture, becoming an epitome of social experience and hospitality. Thanks to that, when it comes to daily tea-drinking habits, it is inevitable that the Turks are far ahead of the British.

When you wander the bustling streets of Turkey, you often see a young boy carrying a silver tray, rushing through the crowd to deliver small tulip-shaped cups of black tea to customers. Traditionally, people do not drink tea with milk or lemon but only add small sugar cubes to create a drink, sometimes very sweet.

When tourists visit shops and say “yes” to being offered tea, they immediately glimpse one of Türkiye’s powerful traditions. This tradition is so strong that if you refuse to be offered tea, the person inviting you will feel highly insulted. If you can’t drink tea for some reason, you should ask for water instead of not drinking anything at all.

A common sight in most towns and villages is a Turkish tea garden called Çay Bahceşi. Friends and families often gather here to chat about life and enjoy the intimate, warm atmosphere while sipping tea.

Although everyone goes to tea gardens, one does see women in Turkish tea shops. Teahouses are primarily an environment for men. Every village has a tea shop because it is as essential as the market.

The wives and girlfriends of male guests do not go into the tea shop because this is where men gather to play board games and sip various flavored teas.

History of Turkish tea

A Çay Bahceşi in Istanbul, Türkiye. Photo: tripadvisor

Compared to tea’s millennia-old history, Turkish tea is surprisingly relatively new. According to some sources, the Turks have been trading and consuming tea since 400 BC. However, tea only became popular in Türkiye from the 1900s onwards.

Tea plants were first tried to be grown on Turkish soil in Bursa from 1888 to 1892. However, this attempt failed because this region of Turkey was not qualified to produce tea. In 1924, tea was grown east of the Black Sea region. Charming tea gardens along the Bosphorus, the tapering side streets of old Istanbul, and tourist spots along the Aegean Sea.

Notably, Turkish tea growers do not need to use pesticides, thanks to what they call natural anti-bacterial methods. That is the annual snowfall covering the Black Sea coastal regions. That climatic feature makes this part of Türkiye the only place where tea plants can withstand freezing temperatures.

Today, more than 700 million square meters of land are used to grow tea plants, and tea is the second most consumed beverage after water in Türkiye. Türkiye is among the world’s top five tea-growing countries, producing about 6 to 10% of the world’s tea. Most of this is consumed domestically.

Caydanlik is needed to brew the perfect cup of Turkish tea. These are two teapots placed on top of each other. The water for tea is placed in the lower pot, while tea leaves and a little water are poured into the upper pot. When the water in the lower kettle boils, people mix this water with the tea leaves in the upper kettle. Then, people pour the tea into a tulip-shaped cup through a strainer so it is only half full and add boiled water from the lower pot.

Turkish tea is a way of life. It is an authentic beverage enjoyed at home, work, and even in Turkish markets, where vendors use tea to attract customers. As Turkish folk say: “Conversation without a cup of tea is like a night sky without a moon.” This represents the feelings, nature, and sentiments of the Turkish people associated with tea. Over the years, tea has been as closely related to Turkish culture as the moon and stars in the night sky. Therefore, Turkish people attach great importance to and affection for this favorite drink.