Well you just got a traditional tea set (made of copper in this special case but could be porcelain or steel etc.) from Turkey and now ask yourself "How am I going to use it?" Let's see first what you should have:
-teapot with top and bottom parts ("çaydanlık" in Turkish)
-tea glasses
-tea spoons
-tea saucers
-a serving plate
-a filter for filtering out the leaves, not too essential but still would be good to enjoy our tea without leaves
-a pack of black tea from Rize, a city in Turkey which is famous for its tea, preferably under the brand of Çaykur, the classical and still the best choice.If you can't find Çaykur any plain black tea (not flavoured like Earl Grey) would be ok. For "real" tea always use tea in the form of those tiny little chopped black leaves. Tea bags are actually the same, just in a bag, but still if you use tea bags the taste won't be as good.
Now let's come to the very straightforward process of preparation. First of all we pour water to the bottom part, just enough amount to fill the top part ( you can choose it according to the number of your guests etc.), well if you want to wait for a longer period of time than that you can fill the bottom part completely but know that then it will take a lot of time for the water to boil. Before the start we also put 2-3 "normal" spoons of tea leaves to the upper part. Again amounts can be adjusted but for a smaller tea set 2 spoons would be more than enough. Put the upper part on top of the bottom part and let the water boil. The steam of the boiling water should heat up the tea leaves in the upper part a little bit, one of those little secrets of Turkish tea. When the water in the bottom part is boiled add the boiled water to the upper part. Fill the empty (or almost empty) bottom part again with water, and let it boil again while the upper part is brewing on top of it. When the water in the bottom part is boiled, adjust the fire to its lowest position and begin to wait for tea in the upper part to brew. This brewing takes time, wait not less than 5 minutes and a few more minutes won't do any.harm. So summarizing:
-Fill the bottom part with water and put black tea leaves into the upper part.
-Put the whole, the upper teapot on the top of the bottom, on fire and let the water boil.
-Pour the boiled water into the upper part and add water to the bottom one again.
-Wait for the water to boil again and then adjust the fire(or electrical stove) to its lowest position
-Wait 5 min for tea to brew.
So now our tea is ready and we want to distribute it to our glasses. If you have a filter put it in the glass you want to fill first, and then pour tea from the upper part, but just a little less than half of the glass usually. The rest of the glass is filled with water from the bottom part. Depending on your taste you can play with these amounts but color might be a good indicator for the best ratio. People call a tea with perfect color "tavşan kanı" (rabbit-blood) so make sure it resembles this. If the amount of tea is really less compared to that of water then it is described as "abdest suyu" (ablution water), the taste and the color would be really light. Again if the tea is too strong then the color is very dark and the taste is bitter, the expression for such kinds is "zift gibi" (like a tar)
The sugar amount is totally up to you, while most people prefer it with 1-2 cubes of sugar I personally prefer to drink it without any, but for the start I advise to drink it with sugar, it may come a little bit bitter to you at first without sugar. Mix sugar and tea with your tea spoon and while people enjoy the sound of the crashes between the tea spoon and glass during mixing; my great-grandma used to advise me " Don't mix it like fincancı katırı (the mule of a cup seller)", meaning do it silently, consider the sound coming from a mule carriage carrying lots of porcelain and glass cups on a bumpy road. Some manners seem to be forgotten.
One particular thing to note is not to fill the tea glass completely up to its very last nanometers. Leave a little bit of so called "dudak payı" (lip space), so that the lips of the drinker don't get burned and also we don't want tea to pour out of course. This lip space is nothing like the huge voids you would see in the tea cups in Balkans, just a very small "lip space" is enough, unless you or your guests are thick lipped like Sezen Aksu :)
Let's explain a little bit of serving procedure.Put the tea glasses with the tea saucers under -and tea spoons inside them- and the sugar on the serving plate serve it to your guests. You are encouraged to eat any kind of sweeties/snacks/cookies/cakes you can imagine while drinking tea, that's what people do here.When your guest has finished his/her tea, you can ask whether he/she wants more or there is another way to indicate it. If someone wants one more glass of tea he/she puts the tea spoon back inside the empty glass. If however he/she doesn't want another one, this time he/she puts the tea spoon horizontally on top of the tea glass, so don't serve tea anymore to that bastard who knows the "tea language".
Dangers involved:
-The tea is too hot and you are carrying it by holding the glass itself. In order not to burn your hand, always grab from saucers while tea glass is on top of it or hold it from the "lip space", which however is not good if you have a guest, they wouldn't like their lips to get in touch with your fingerprints :)
-Since you'll talk a lot while you enjoy your tea you might forget the teapot on stove and if all the water in the bottom part is finished then the teapot itself can begin to burn, losing its shiny appearance, be careful about it, never leave the stove open after you are done with drinking tea. (You might let the stove be open during drinking since you may not want the next glasses tea be cold.)
-You can become addicted
Now you have the necessary knowledge and you can start to enjoy tea in the Turkish way. But please don't be so orientalistic like this American woman, respect the cultures as they are and don't make fairy-tales out of realities.
I have written this post just for a lovely friend of mine but others who come across this blog might find it also useful. I wish to my friend and all the others many moments of happiness accompanied by Turkish tea. For the finish a little bit of trivia:
-When Chernobyl accident happened in 1986 it was claimed that the radiation affected tea leaves grown in Rize. In order to prove those claims wrong the minister of industry and trade drank a glass of tea on TV.
-Tea glasses are known as "thin-belly", since their shape is like a woman having a thin belly.
-People in Eastern Turkey -and also in Iraqi Kurdistan as far as I heard from someone- drink their tea while they hold a sugar cube inside their mouth. This method of drinking tea is known as "kıtlama", coming from the root "kıt", imitation of the sound arising when a sugar cube is bitten or cut in two.
-Don't be afraid when you hear the term "kaçak çay", meaning "illegal tea". In the past, when the tea import from other countries were banned, people used to bring tea ,from Ceylon for example, illegally to the country. Now with the free market economy there is no ban but the term is still there, describing the tea from Ceylon mainly. It has a somewhat different taste than the tea from Rize but it has also many fans. You can also mix different kinds of tea in order to achieve unique mixes of taste.
-teapot with top and bottom parts ("çaydanlık" in Turkish)
-tea glasses
-tea spoons
-tea saucers
-a serving plate
-a filter for filtering out the leaves, not too essential but still would be good to enjoy our tea without leaves
-a pack of black tea from Rize, a city in Turkey which is famous for its tea, preferably under the brand of Çaykur, the classical and still the best choice.If you can't find Çaykur any plain black tea (not flavoured like Earl Grey) would be ok. For "real" tea always use tea in the form of those tiny little chopped black leaves. Tea bags are actually the same, just in a bag, but still if you use tea bags the taste won't be as good.
Now let's come to the very straightforward process of preparation. First of all we pour water to the bottom part, just enough amount to fill the top part ( you can choose it according to the number of your guests etc.), well if you want to wait for a longer period of time than that you can fill the bottom part completely but know that then it will take a lot of time for the water to boil. Before the start we also put 2-3 "normal" spoons of tea leaves to the upper part. Again amounts can be adjusted but for a smaller tea set 2 spoons would be more than enough. Put the upper part on top of the bottom part and let the water boil. The steam of the boiling water should heat up the tea leaves in the upper part a little bit, one of those little secrets of Turkish tea. When the water in the bottom part is boiled add the boiled water to the upper part. Fill the empty (or almost empty) bottom part again with water, and let it boil again while the upper part is brewing on top of it. When the water in the bottom part is boiled, adjust the fire to its lowest position and begin to wait for tea in the upper part to brew. This brewing takes time, wait not less than 5 minutes and a few more minutes won't do any.harm. So summarizing:
-Fill the bottom part with water and put black tea leaves into the upper part.
-Put the whole, the upper teapot on the top of the bottom, on fire and let the water boil.
-Pour the boiled water into the upper part and add water to the bottom one again.
-Wait for the water to boil again and then adjust the fire(or electrical stove) to its lowest position
-Wait 5 min for tea to brew.
So now our tea is ready and we want to distribute it to our glasses. If you have a filter put it in the glass you want to fill first, and then pour tea from the upper part, but just a little less than half of the glass usually. The rest of the glass is filled with water from the bottom part. Depending on your taste you can play with these amounts but color might be a good indicator for the best ratio. People call a tea with perfect color "tavşan kanı" (rabbit-blood) so make sure it resembles this. If the amount of tea is really less compared to that of water then it is described as "abdest suyu" (ablution water), the taste and the color would be really light. Again if the tea is too strong then the color is very dark and the taste is bitter, the expression for such kinds is "zift gibi" (like a tar)
The sugar amount is totally up to you, while most people prefer it with 1-2 cubes of sugar I personally prefer to drink it without any, but for the start I advise to drink it with sugar, it may come a little bit bitter to you at first without sugar. Mix sugar and tea with your tea spoon and while people enjoy the sound of the crashes between the tea spoon and glass during mixing; my great-grandma used to advise me " Don't mix it like fincancı katırı (the mule of a cup seller)", meaning do it silently, consider the sound coming from a mule carriage carrying lots of porcelain and glass cups on a bumpy road. Some manners seem to be forgotten.
One particular thing to note is not to fill the tea glass completely up to its very last nanometers. Leave a little bit of so called "dudak payı" (lip space), so that the lips of the drinker don't get burned and also we don't want tea to pour out of course. This lip space is nothing like the huge voids you would see in the tea cups in Balkans, just a very small "lip space" is enough, unless you or your guests are thick lipped like Sezen Aksu :)
Let's explain a little bit of serving procedure.Put the tea glasses with the tea saucers under -and tea spoons inside them- and the sugar on the serving plate serve it to your guests. You are encouraged to eat any kind of sweeties/snacks/cookies/cakes you can imagine while drinking tea, that's what people do here.When your guest has finished his/her tea, you can ask whether he/she wants more or there is another way to indicate it. If someone wants one more glass of tea he/she puts the tea spoon back inside the empty glass. If however he/she doesn't want another one, this time he/she puts the tea spoon horizontally on top of the tea glass, so don't serve tea anymore to that bastard who knows the "tea language".
Dangers involved:
-The tea is too hot and you are carrying it by holding the glass itself. In order not to burn your hand, always grab from saucers while tea glass is on top of it or hold it from the "lip space", which however is not good if you have a guest, they wouldn't like their lips to get in touch with your fingerprints :)
-Since you'll talk a lot while you enjoy your tea you might forget the teapot on stove and if all the water in the bottom part is finished then the teapot itself can begin to burn, losing its shiny appearance, be careful about it, never leave the stove open after you are done with drinking tea. (You might let the stove be open during drinking since you may not want the next glasses tea be cold.)
-You can become addicted
Now you have the necessary knowledge and you can start to enjoy tea in the Turkish way. But please don't be so orientalistic like this American woman, respect the cultures as they are and don't make fairy-tales out of realities.
I have written this post just for a lovely friend of mine but others who come across this blog might find it also useful. I wish to my friend and all the others many moments of happiness accompanied by Turkish tea. For the finish a little bit of trivia:
-When Chernobyl accident happened in 1986 it was claimed that the radiation affected tea leaves grown in Rize. In order to prove those claims wrong the minister of industry and trade drank a glass of tea on TV.
-Tea glasses are known as "thin-belly", since their shape is like a woman having a thin belly.
-People in Eastern Turkey -and also in Iraqi Kurdistan as far as I heard from someone- drink their tea while they hold a sugar cube inside their mouth. This method of drinking tea is known as "kıtlama", coming from the root "kıt", imitation of the sound arising when a sugar cube is bitten or cut in two.
-Don't be afraid when you hear the term "kaçak çay", meaning "illegal tea". In the past, when the tea import from other countries were banned, people used to bring tea ,from Ceylon for example, illegally to the country. Now with the free market economy there is no ban but the term is still there, describing the tea from Ceylon mainly. It has a somewhat different taste than the tea from Rize but it has also many fans. You can also mix different kinds of tea in order to achieve unique mixes of taste.
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