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Russian tea culture

Way to Russia Talk Lounge Forum Index -> Russian Contexts, Myths and Truths

Author	Message
Moniek Just Starting Joined: 30 Sep 2008 Posts: 3	Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:57 pm    Post subject: Russian tea culture I'm doing a small research on the russian tea culture and I was wondering if everybody in Russia still uses a Samovar to prepare their tea. And also what is the most important ingredient of the Russian tea culture? Can anybody please help me?
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Ender WayToRussified Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 498 Location: Urals	Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 7:05 am    Post subject: You can encounter a samovar probably in the countryside but deffinitely not in a city. Russians use electric or ordinary teapots in order to boil the water. I don't see anything special in Russian tea culture. I think that the most important ingredient of Russian tea culture is that people usually drink tea together and discuss various things. I guess this is similar to other cultures.
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gomer WayToRussified Joined: 30 Mar 2007 Posts: 445	Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:13 am    Post subject: Ice tea is popular in some countries. Muscovites I met heard of ice tea but none ever drank any, even during summer.
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Ender WayToRussified Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 498 Location: Urals	Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:12 am    Post subject: gomer wrote: Ice tea is popular in some countries. Muscovites I met heard of ice tea but none ever drank any, even during summer. Many Russians I know love very sweet ice coffee, but tea... no way... it becomes disgusting when it is cold. I mean cheap tea like Ahmad or Lipton. There is tea which tasty when it is cold hovewer it costs too much for average russian and it isn't widely known. I usually buy sencha... and drink it hot anyway. In Russia (well... actually here at Ural, I don't know about western Russia) it costs about 900..1200 (approximately USD $36..$48 ) roubles per kilo.
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Varrah Lounge Lizard Joined: 26 Jun 2008 Posts: 80 Location: St.-Petersburg, Russia	Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:39 pm    Post subject: Russians use samovars rarely these days. This is either for special case or if every other method of boiling water is not accessible in the exact moment. Samovars these days are electric mostly. To find a fire-heated samovar is hard. It is almost impossible to use it in a city, so yes, more chances to see it on a countryside. Russians do not like packeted and instant tea - the worst tea-leaves go there.The main point of a good tee, that it should be leaf tea. You should make it with a special small tea-pot. Many Russians prefer to make so-called "zavarka" - kind of tea concentrate in a tea-pot, which you can make once and then use for the whole day (or more - depends on the tea) to make full-flavour tea with just small amount of "zavarka" and hot water. I was shocked to see that in Europe and US people only drink packeted tea, even in 5-star hotels/restaraunts. UPD: about the cold tea - believe me, there's no better drink for a thursty man in a hot summer day, than a cup of good green tea
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Moniek Just Starting Joined: 30 Sep 2008 Posts: 3	Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:13 am    Post subject: Thank you all so much for your replies! If you have any other information about tea and Russia you know where to post it!
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Halida-Koethe Just Starting Joined: 17 Mar 2010 Posts: 0	Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:54 pm    Post subject: Last edited by Halida-Koethe on Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:13 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Avis Frequent Guest Joined: 15 Oct 2008 Posts: 42 Location: Moscow, Russia	Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:42 pm    Post subject: I wonder if there's any tea culture in Russia As for packeted tea i would say it's quite a usual thing among those people i know (me either). Anyway it all depends.
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Moniek Just Starting Joined: 30 Sep 2008 Posts: 3	Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:05 pm    Post subject: I have an other question I hope you can help me with: Do you know why the Samovar isn't used in the city anymore?
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Ender WayToRussified Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 498 Location: Urals	Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:22 pm    Post subject: Moniek wrote: I have an other question I hope you can help me with: Do you know why the Samovar isn't used in the city anymore? 1. Fire safety. 2. There are more compact and useful devices for water boiling. Roossians not warwars, we are civilivivlized peepl. Sometimes electric samovars are used in the cities. They usually have x2 bigger volume than ordinary tea pot. If you have many guests at the end of party they drink tea with cakes. In this case the bigger the volume the better.
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Soundbrigade Frequent Guest Joined: 25 Dec 2007 Posts: 50 Location: Sweden	Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:48 pm    Post subject: The Russians are pragmatic people. My collegue in St Petersburg was looking for am electric water kettle with three kind of protections and an option of keeping the water warm, a samovar wouldn't fix that for him. I have btw a nicely painted samovar from Ulyanovsk with a level switch that turns the samovar off when it runs out of water.
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