Making the case for Iranian tea

origiran — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 16:37:16 +0000

The ritual, the taste, the history. Do Iranians make the best tea in the world?

One of my fondest memories of growing up in Iran is having tea with my great grandmother in Shemiran. She presided over a long rectangular room in north Tehran seated on her prayer mat facing my grandfather’s rose garden and fruit trees. I sat cross-legged on the floor next to her. Large Persian rugs covered the cold tiled floors underneath. Paisley-specked wallpaper adorned the walls.

Two items were within her grasp: her Quran and a steaming samovar on a short side table to her right. “Would you like some tea?” she would ask, with a quiet smile around her eyes and lips, when she noticed me. I would lean in to kiss her soft cheeks.

A ceramic teapot with a drawing of a red rose warmed, soaked and sunk a spoonful of fragrant tea leaves to the bottom, turning the water a perfect shade of brown, a touch golden as it poured out of the spout and tangled with the sunlight coming over the horizon. She poured the tea thick and potent for the adults, and ceremoniously, containing only a hint of colour, to the great-grandkids. Boiling water from the samovar reduced the intensity even more.

My favourite article about tea, written for the Tehran Bureau a few years ago, recounts an epic search for that great cup of tea, the one we Iranians make best, but can only taste in our memories – “clear, crisp, brilliant, and separate from the water. The water was not part of the tea, it was there just to extract the right essences and bear them forth in the most neutral manner.” (Kind of like good old-fashioned journalism?)

As our correspondent put it, “Each time I have tea, alone or with friends, unexpected memories bubble up in association with a certain glass, always held with the rim between the thumb and the forefinger, and balanced on the edge of the pinkie. The flashbacks are to events that tea has somehow impressed upon the memory better than any other device. The memories are like pictures tagged by the teas that were experienced then.”

The next best thing to those memories – however distant a second – are a collection of photos.

Tea break in Tajrish, north Tehran. Photograph: Kamyar Adl/flickr

A tray of tea and pistachio shells. Photograph: David Yaghoobi via Flickr

Farhod Family gets into character for a Golestan tea commercial directed by Niki Karimi. Photograph: Courtesy of Farhod Family

Shop window off Place des Vosges, Paris: ‘Tea from the samovar: mint tea, Iranian tea, €2.50 a glass.’ Photograph: Kelly Golnoush Niknejad/Tehran Bureau

Tea at the Tehran Bazaar. Photograph: Parisa Yazdanjoo

Iranian tea house on Khayyam Street, Tehran. Photograph: Kamyar Adl/flickr

Iranian tea house close to the Zendan-e Eskandar (Alexander the Great’s prison) in Yazd. Its underground location and central pool provide a nice respite from the desert sun. Photograph: /flickr

Tea and sweets with family. Photograph: David Yaghoobi

Tea cooled in and sipped from the saucer. Photograph: Casey Hugelfink/flickr

Nohur – Tea Pots. Photograph: Peretz Partensky/flickr

Golden samovar placed out of reach. Caravanserai Zein-o Din, Yazd Province, Iran.Photograph: ninara/flickr

Tea at a mourning ceremony. Photograph: Beeshef/flickr

Shia tea seller. Photograph: Kamyar Adl/flickr

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History of iranian tea (chai)

origiran — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 17:46:55 +0000

The history of tea culture in Iran started at the end of the 15th century. Before that coffee was the main beverage in Iran. However, most of the coffee producing countries were located far from Iran, making shipping very difficult. With a major tea producing country, China, located on a nearby trading path, “the silk road”, and the shipping of tea was much easier. This was a major reason for tea becoming popular in Iran. As a result, the demand for tea grew, and more tea needed to be imported to match Iran’s consumption.

Iran failed in their first attempt to cultivate tea in their own country in 1882 with seeds from India. In 1899 Prince Mohammad Mirza known as “Kashef Al Saltaneh” who was born in Lahijan, imported Indian tea and started its cultivation in Lahijan. Kashef, who was the first mayor of Tehran and an Iranian ambassador to India under British rule, knew that the British would not allow him to learn about the secrets of tea production, as it was their biggest business in India at the time. So being fluent in French, the prince pretended to be a French laborer and started to work in the tea plantations and factories to learn how to produce tea. Ultimately his plan was to take back some samples of this tea to Iran to cultivate. He was successful in this endeavor only because of his diplomatic immunity which stopped the British from searching his secretly stashed sample. At the time, Kashef brought 3000 saplings into his country from the Northern part of India, Kangra. He started the cultivation in the region of Gilan, south of the Caspian Sea. The climate there was well suited for tea cultivation, and the tea industry quickly expanded in Gilan and Mazanderan region. Kashef’s mausoleum in Lahijan is now part of “Iran’s National Tea Museum”.

In 1934 the first modern style tea factory was built. Now there are up to 107 tea factories and a total of 32,000 hectare of tea farms. Most of the farms are located the hillsides of Iran like the farms in Darjeeling. These farms produce an orthodox style of black tea. The color of Iranian tea is red and taste is fairly light, and it is delicious without adding any milk or sugar. The total production of black tea in 2009 was approximately 60,000 tons.

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Tea Articles – OrigIran

Making the case for Iranian tea

History of iranian tea (chai)