Çay

If the US runs on coffee, Turkey runs on tea. Tea is the breakfast drink, and if you ask for coffee, you get ‘Nescafe’ instant. The Türk kahve, for which they are famous, is an afternoon drink, is wonderful, and deserves its own post. Tea on the other hand, is drunk at any time, day or night, and is the sign of hospitality, offered to everyone. (The carpet sellers love to give you tea to keep you in their shops longer. Apple tea, a sweet instant drink, is almost synonymous with carpet shops.) Tea production along the Black Sea coast is big business. They grow and process tons of black tea, but it doesn’t add to the export economy as they consume it all in country.

The teapot is a two story affair. Really strong tea is made in the upper level and kept over boiling water. When you’re ready for a cup, some of the very strong tea is poured into the bardak (glass) and boiling water is added diluting it to the desired strength. While our apartment came equipped with the appropriate tea maker, I was delighted to find a little teapot made in China on sale in the market under the Kocatepe mosque.

Drinking tea is a great custom, but the glasses take a little getting used to. Most don’t have handles and a fresh glass of tea is definitely too hot to hold. On the other hand, they cool off quickly, and since most Turks take a cube or two of sugar, the first few seconds spent stirring dissolve the sugar and cool the tea. I may look a little silly stirring when there’s no sugar, but it beats burning my mouth.

Our apartment came well furnished with a variety of çay bardaklar (plural as you’ve probably guessed). I’ve joked with my neighbor (in English, unfortunately) that the really small pretty ones must be for visitors you want to get rid of quickly, but don’t want to offend outright.

One of the first delights at work was having tea brought into my office by this staff person, who’s got the greatest smile. The only problem is that there’s a small window of time when the tea’s not too hot or too cold. 

It didn’t take long to get over any hesitancy of sounding like Goldilocks and ask for a big cup. To my delight, this tourist mug from the coastal town of Ayvalık was available and was assigned to me. I can forgive the misspelling as two vowels together is very rare in Turkish and the ‘o-u-i’ three vowels in a row in ‘Louise’ is tough for Turks to pronounce and harder to spell.

All in all, tea is a lovely tradition of hospitality and friendship.