Turkish Tea
November 30, 2011 | 
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Turkish Apple Fruit Tea
If you’ve been to Turkey lately, chances are that you’ve come across apple tea. There are two types of apple tea popular in Turkey: apple flavored camelia sinensis, which is apple flavored black tea, and apple fruit tea, which is an apple flavored caffeine free beverage with flowers, leaves, and apple pieces.
Dogadan, the brand of Turkish apple fruit tea that I sell at my tea store, contains the folloring ingredients: Apple, Hibiscus, Blackberry leaves, Apple flavor, Lemon peel, and Cinnamon. The winey color and tartness of the hibiscus makes it the kind of fruit tea that’s very popular in Germany, and my theory is that Turkish guest workers in Germany popularized this tea in their homeland.
When it comes to black tea, I do believe that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Turks surpassing the Brits in per capita tea consumption, and apple flavored black tea is part of the celebration. Naturally, it’s served Turkish style: sweetened but never with the addition of milk.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Posted in Herbal Tea, Turkish Tea, Uncategorized | 
Tags: apple tea, fruit tea, Turkish apple tea, Turkish tea | 
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Turkish Stovetop Samovar
While you’re unlikely to have an elaborate charcoal powered samovar at home, you could easily have an inexpensive stovetop model, and even if this is out of reach you could build your own by finding a teapot that fits with some stability on top of a kettle. “To what purpose?” you may ask. Ah, so that you can brew tea the way they do in Turkey, among other places. The advantages of the samovar are flavor, you can serve a lot of tea at once fairly quickly, and the fact that you can serve tea either dark or light.
Here’s how you do it. Fill the kettle with water and bring to a boil, then place some tea into the teapot and fill with hot water from the kettle. Refill the kettle. Now take off the kettle’s lid and place the teapot on the kettle so that the teapot now acts like the lid. Place the kettle back on the stove. When ready to serve, fire up the stove to heat the water in the kettle. This will also heat the now concentrated tea in the teapot. To serve, separate the teapot and kettle, pour some tea into tea glasses, and top with hot water from the kettle. Adjusting the ratio of tea to water makes it darker or lighter to suit the preference of each individual being served. Offer sugar cubes so that everyone can sweeten their tea to taste.
While the samovar method works well with Turkish tea, Russian tea, and with Earl Grey (the Iranian preference, I believe), it may not do as well with strong black teas that tend toward bitterness and astringency; these are better served with milk or cream as in England (but never in Turkey).
Most of the light but tasty tea grown in Turkey is consumed in Turkey, but I do make it a point to always have some on hand at my tea store, as well as a stovetop samovar or two.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Posted in Earl Grey, Tea Accessories, Turkish Tea, Uncategorized | Tags: Russian tea, samovar, Stovetop Samovar, tea in Turkey, Turkish tea | No Comments »
Like everything else, modern stovetop Turkish samovars, simply called “Stainless Steel Tea Pot“, are made in China. These consist of a bottom pot that serves as a kettle and a smaller pot that fits on top and serves as the tea pot. Water is boiled in the kettle, and some of it is then poured into the tea pot which has looseleaf tea in it.
The smaller tea pot is then set onto the larger kettle. It’s a nice fit as the pots are made so that when the lid is removed from the kettle the tea pot fits onto the kettle snugly.
The kettle can sit on the stove all day if a lot of tea is going to be drunk, or the water can be brought back up to temperature when tea is desired. What happens is that some of the very strong tea from the tea pot is poured into a tea glass and topped with hot water from the kettle. This way one can drink light tea, by adding more kettle water, or strong tea, by adding more of the brew from the top pot.
Tea in Turkey is usually sweetened with sugar.
The reason it’s served in glasses, rather than ceramic cups, is so that the fiery orange color of the tea can be enjoyed along with the brew itself.
Turkish tea, tea glasses, and the stainless steel tea pots, which I call stovetop samovars, are all available now at Tea and Treasure in Coupeville, WA.
Roland Petrov
Turkish tea is grown without the use of synthetic pesticide and packages often designate that no artificial additives have been added.
Does that mean that Turkish tea is organically grown? Probably, but there are other requirements before we can describe it as organic Turkish tea.
1. The tea can not be irradiated nor genetically modified. I’m guessing that Turkish tea is neither of the above, but I need confirmation on that.
2. Some also believe that the soil organic produce is grown in must be designated as organic itself. Since pesticide is not used on Turkish tea I assume the soil could at least be certified as pesticide free.
When tea, or any other produce, is grown organically it should be so labeled. Does the term “organic” appearing on a label guarantee that the produce is, indeed, organic?
Unfortunately, the answer appears to be, “Not all the time.”
The reasons could be inadequate enforcement, differing definitions of organic in different states and countries, and contamination that was overlooked.
Would I like all tea to be grown organically? Yes.
Do I insist on only drinking tea designated as organic? No. I believe that the health benefits of tea outweigh any risk that may be posed by not having grown the tea in a strict organic way.
I do, of course, appreciate the efforts of farmers and governments to guarantee a pesticide free product, which is why I’m sipping Turkish tea as I write this blog.
Roland Petrov
Rize is a small Turkish province on the Black Sea, with a capital city of the same name. It is very important as the center of the Turkish tea industry.
The city of Rize is built on a narrow area of flat land on the Black Sea coast guarded by steep hillsides. The mild climate is nevertheless extremely wet, so the area is defined by very green vegetation that attracts visitors. Green tea bushes cover entire mountainsides. A panoramic view of the area can be had from Ziraat Park, which is in the city.
You can taste tea blends at the summer Tea Festival in June, where you can also sample rare Anzer honey from the surrounding mountains. The first tea factory was openend in Rize in 1947.
Today I have unveiled Turkish tea for the first time at my teashop.
Roland Petrov