Make Room for Russian Tea, Part 2

The major events in bringing tea to Russia discussed in the previous post were the evolution of the “Great Tea Road” and later, the building of the Trans-Siberian railway. These historical developments resulted in an important increase in the availability in tea at public occasions in Russia, and helped spread tea drinking to all the members of Russian society. The ballerina Tamara Karsavina even noted the welcome provision of tea on a cold day at a matinee performance by the students of the Maryinsky Theater School in Saint Petersburg in 1896. She says: “Huge samovars steamed outside the stage door… In the interval tea and refreshments were served in the foyers and the staff wore their gala red livery with the Imperial eagles.” Tea was served formally in the social ritual of afternoon tea, an adopted European custom. However, in Russia, sweeteners were never added to tea, but taken separately. These could be lumps of sugar, pieces of candied fruit, or preserves.

The most characteristic aspect of Russian tea culture is the samovar, literally “self-cooker”. This is a simple but highly effective piece of equipment that makes warm tea available throughout the day. The samovar is lovingly referenced in Russian literary works and often appears in paintings and historical photographs. It functions by heating a metal urn of water through a central tube heated by a charcoal or wood fire. A strong concentrate of the tea (“zavarka”) is kept warm by sitting on top of the metal urn, and is diluted as needed to make tea throughout the day. By the late eighteenth century, samovars were starting to be made in large numbers in the metalworking city of Tula, south of Moscow. Most samovars were made of brass, but some were crafted from silver or gold and were presented on special occasions as gifts to the court. The samovar was a purely Russian invention. While classical European teapots and cups were popular to serve tea in, the Imperial Russian Porcelain Factory (LFZ), founded in 1744 under the patronage of Empress Elizabetha Petrovna (r. 1741-62), is the longest continuously-running factory in Russia, and the only factories to continue working through the revolution and two world wars. They became famous for manufacturing elegant services of matching teapots, jugs, sugar bowls, cups, saucers and trays decorated in bright colors. Tea was drunk not only from porcelain cups but also from glasses set in decorative metal holders. This custom continues in Russia today.

The Russians have become such devoted tea drinkers that as a nation they are the third largest consumers of tea in the world (behind China and India). Per capita Russians are second only to China as the biggest consumers of tea. Russia’s thirst for tea today is satisfied by Georgian production (which has now developed into the seventh-largest tea producing region in the world) as well as imports from China, Taiwan, India, and Sri Lanka. Favorite imported blends are sometimes slightly smoked, or flavored with Citrus fruits and bergamot, and include romantic names such as Russian Blend, Russian Caravan, and Czar Alexander.

Make Room for Russian Tea - Part 1

As a first-generation American, and daughter of Russian immigrants, I grew up steeped in Russian tea traditions. My first memories of tea are the sweet smell of strong black tea alongside fruits or black bread with jam, which we had every afternoon and evening. I have passed along many of these traditions to my daughters. And today, I’m writing about the tea traditions of my Russian ancestors.

Russia, land of the samovar, is a great consumer of what is traditionally called “Russian Tea”, even though no tea grows there. Russians drink mostly black tea. Tea in Russia is always served hot, either in hot weather or as a thirst–quencher. One cannot imagine Russian tea without the samovar, adopted in the 17th century and inspired by Mongol kettles used since the 13th century. The samovar is a combination bubbling hot water heater and teapot. In summer the samovar is placed on a table in the garden; in the winter, inside, with a long pipe for the smoke to escape directly into the chimney of the house.

Tea is said to have been introduced into Russia in 1616 when a Cossack by the name of Tyumenets returned from a diplomatic mission to Mongolia with samples of Chinese tea. The first exports of tea began from northern China into Mongolia as bricks and bales of compressed tea harnessed on the backs of camels and mules. The warm beverage brewed from the shavings of the tea bricks became crucial to the diets of the Mongolian nomads, as the tea substituted as a vegetable, and was consumed daily. The cost of tea was initially prohibitive and available only to wealthy Russians. In 1638, a gift of two hundred packets of tea were sent as a gift from the Mongol ruler to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, to which he responded that he would have preferred sables.

By the time of Peter the Great, the price had dropped. Hearty, warm, and sustaining, tea was ideally suited to Russian life. Russia’s growth into a major tea-drinking nation owed much to the opening of the overland caravan route across Mongolia following the signing of the Nerchinsk treaty with China in 1689. Tea was brought from China to Russia by this "Great Tea Road". This was a part of the famous Silk Road. The journey was not easy, taking over sixteen months to complete 11,000 miles. The average caravan consisted of 200 to 300 camels. The tea brought along this route took the form of loose-leaf tea packed into chests.

From the 1860’s this was supplemented and indeed surpassed by brick tea made at Russian factories set up in Hankou, China, a major tea-trading region on the banks of the Yangtze River in Hubei Province. Subsequently, the Trans-Siberian railway, from the start of the twentieth century, brought an end to the camel caravan. Tea was now shipped from China to Vladivostok and then taken across Russia by rail. In addition, starting in 1892, plantations were established along the Black Sea coasts of Georgia, in the northern Caucasus, and in Azerbajan near the Caspian Sea.