Turkish tea goes global
Turkey has big plans for branding, and developing its tea presence in the international markets. Currently they only export about 1% of their teas. If the Turkish tea industry’s plans succeed; Turkish tea will be a world brand by 2023. One of Turkish tea’s strong points; it’s grown without the need of pesticides. While that alone does not make it “organic”, it does constitute a selling point.
Here’s “Todays Zaman” article on how the country plans to acquaint us with their teas. 96% of the Turkish population drinks black tea every day – maybe once we’ve tried it, we’ll understand why.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-264040-turkish-tea-aims-high.html
Will this be the new lipton? Affordable, organic, great taste then anything that is so available to everyone that it will rival anything what Lipton or any companies out there market these days as “organic” and “high quality”? I have not tasted turkish tea yet but I have heard it rather quite strong or diluted and relatively flat. One thing for sure, if this tea does go world wide I definitely buy me a Samovar! Its functional and somethingto talk about with friends over a cuppa!
there is no way that this is going global! Taste notes are on Caykur Filiz, but safe to assume from judgements offsite its really a Lipton in disguise! More on the tasting notes for Caykur.
In my experience, Turkish tea can be quite nice. Often, it is heavily sweetened, which brings out nice, bright apple and fruit flavors. Also, proper preparation in a samovar adds to its complex, bold flavor.
You have to understand that it is not the same as a high quality, whole leaf Chinese or Darjeeling tea. Most Turkish tea production is small, broken leaf style, which is why it can be seen as “Lipton in disguise”. The pesticide free thing is interesting, though, and given proper preparation, it is well worth a try.
I have to say its a good tea and really enjoyable to have every once in a while. However, I have to say I look further in the process on how they harvest the tea and found they use CLIPPERS instead of plucking the leaves! Guess it kinda ruins the flavor a lot since the tea itself is quite mute at the beginning, but the aftertaste was quite strong.
I have colleague from Turkey, and she brought me some Turkish grown tea once (made for the Turkish market). I didn’t have any information about the brand or make or anything, and it wasn’t in the original container either. She gave it to me because neither her or her husband drank it much anyway, so it was probably pretty old as well.
She gave me instructions on how to brew it Turkish style and I remember quite enjoying both it and also the new (for me) way of preparing it, as much as I could replicate it with the things I had to my disposal.
If anybody are interested in that, I posted about it here http://steepster.com/Angrboda/posts/24305
So yeah, more Turkish grown tea on the market, yes please. I would definitely like to explore that further.
I’ve recently purchased a Turkish double kettle and a couple of varieties of Caykur tea, and I am looking forward to trying it as soon as the kettle arrives.
I too have heard mixed reports about the quality and taste of Turkish tea, but like many teas the rituals involved in the preparation seem to be as important as the tea itself.
I love the Turkish tea culture and the way they also drink small quantities at a time and refill their tiny glass cups for inumerable times.
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