Guest Post: Çay Çek

Today, Sevnur of Çay Çek is guest posting on my blog and will be talking all about Turkish tea customs. I was thrilled when she contacted me, because my brother in law was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. Please enjoy learning about Turkish tea! Below is a photo Sevnur provided.

Turkey is the biggest tea consumer country in the world and the 5th biggest

tea producer. The most interesting thing is the only tea that covered by

snow is Turkish tea. That makes the tea the healthiest and organic at the

same time. No chemicals are used while growing the tea. Tea in Turkey is

mainly the black tea, very dominant all over the country and grown in the

Black Sea region.

Above is Sevnur drinking her tea in Istanbul, Turkey


Tea is the most popular beverage in the country, our informal tea ceremony

starts with the breakfast and does not end till we go to bed. We drink tea

before meals, during meals and after meals, black tea is served free after meals

in most of the restaurants. Turkish black tea has a brisk tea, and is very strong

so some people prefer to drink it with sugar, sometimes with lemon, but

never with milk.



We use a special two chamber teapot called samovar which keeps tea hot

throughout the day. Tea is always ready at houses, offices and restaurants

thanks to samovar. Another unique equipment we use while drinking tea is

the tea glass. It has a very special shape, they call it as thin belly glass or

tulip-shaped glass. It is the perfect glass to drink tea because keeps tea at the

bottom hot while cooling at the top.

See below, a close up of the black tea:

About caycek.com: Çay Çek means "drink tea." It is a Turkish tea website

includes anything and everything about tea.