Russian Guys Love Tea Too :)

45 Replies
Sergey said

I can also tell you a bit about the way many Russian people (especially adults) brew black tea (I believe it’s the most popular tea in Russia). We use a small teapot, where we brew strong tea. However, when the tea is ready, we pour some tea in the cup and add there boiled water to make it not so strong and drink it.
And even when the tea in the pot gets cool, we use the same approach to make it both hot and not so strong.

Could you tell me also where you are from and how you drink tea in a traditional way?

So you still drink samovar style, only without the samovar!

Thank you for sharing your method! Fascinating.
I love learning about different cultures.
My Mum is Polish, and growing up she was often the last of four children to have a swing at the tea bag, so has grown accustomed to tea that is super light. Two or three dunks of the bag and some lemon!

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Rie said

Welcome! Looking forward to hearing about your tea experiences from all the way in Russia, it’s amazing how the site is bringing all of these different people, places, and cultures together. I didn’t know about the jam + tea combination before, very interesting! Will have to try that now. :)

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Courtney said

I just saw this discussion, as I procrastinate a presentation I’m supposed to be working on. I actually have a wee bit of Kusmi’s Russian Morning No. 24 left in my cupboard that I think I’ll try with jam for my next cup.

I hope Kusmi’s tea can count as a Russian black tea and I have some strawberry jam in the fridge. It’s so neat to hear about the different ways people enjoy their tea.

Welcome :)

Well the Kusmi Russian Morning would be more in the
Russian “style” the Nobility drank, the family having left Russia in 1917 with the Revolution and began creating blends in Paris for the émigré White Russians there. The company was sold in 2003 to a cocoa and coffee importing family. That said, they seem to have striven to keep the old blends faithful and as you already know, the morning tea is a not too smoky blend made from black China, India and Ceylon teas.

When my Russian grandparents came to the US they did their best to preserve tradition in the ways they could. Although I remember sitting at the table watching my grandfather drinking Lipton Tea, he drank it from a simple glass with a sugar cube in his mouth.

Rachel J said

Ooh drinking black tea with a sugar cube in your mouth sounds like it would be really interesting.

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Bonnie said

Several of us drink the Czar Nikolas II which comes in Renaissance, St. Valentine, Russian Royal and other flavors on Amazon at $8.99 for 250gr. (quite a lot of tea really). These are sweet and floral black Ceylon tea’s. TerriTheHarpLady drinks the St. Valentine too.

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The description of the tea: pure Ceylon loose tea, scented with Safflower, Marigolds, and Blue Mallow Blossoms and the reviews sound really wonderful.

Sergey, forgive my perhaps fatuous lack of familiarity (and presumption), but are things in the former Soviet Union today such that you could order a tea called Czar Nicholas II?

Sergey said

Sorry, I’m not quite sure if I understand the question right :) But if you mean whether this tea is sold in Russia or not, yes it is, but I have never drunk it.

Zeks said

Never heard of this tea.

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Rachel J said

Love this thread. As a classical pianist, I have always been fascinated by all things Russian. :)

Sergey, from your description above, sounds like people still drink samovar style. That’s cool. I also love the jam idea. Sounds like something I’d like. What kind of tea would you drink with this method?

I’m gonna have to look up this Czar Nikolas tea to see what it’s all about.

Sergey said

If we speak generally about the average person in Russia, it can be any black tea like Lipton or Ahmad tea, or any other.
But I have also experimented with some chinese tea :) For instance, with Dian Hong Mao Feng. It was also delicious.

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Welcome to Steepster Sergey!

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welcome! it gets addictive fast :)

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Zeks said

Hey there! Glad I’m not the only one from Russia here now :)

Verdant would be excellent choice for first order but the customs is clogged atm. I am only receiving my orders from December now.

At the same time chinese parcels seem to be experiencing not much difficulty going in so shops like http://jkteashop.com/ are probably better choices if you don’t want to wait for a long time.

I would not recommend Teavivre though as most of their teas I consider average at best (just my opinion) but packages from them came reasonably fast (for Russia this means – within a month)

I’m not much into Japanese greens after all, but http://www.hibiki-an.com/ is rather good and arrives ridiculously fast – 2-3 weeks to Moscow Region is the fastest I’ve ever had.

Also – the tea from http://www.kaimatcha.com/ was great and arrived fast.

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Zeks said

And yeah, most of the people here in Russia can’t drink a cup without adding 2-3 spoons of sugar (at one point in the past I added 5-6) or jam. The very idea that tea should be consumed without sweetening it first is kinda unthinkable. This is probably due to the fact that for the longest time people had access to only lower grade black/green tea which actually does benefit from sugar.

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