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All You Want to Know About Russian Tea | How Should We Make Russian Tea?

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Although vodka is the drink that most people connect with Russia, tea remains the beverage of choice throughout the country. The most frequent tea preparation in Russia is known as zavarka, and the secret is that it's not about the type of tea you boil, but rather how you make it. Learn the subtleties of Russian tea etiquette, which is an important part of the country's social culture.

Background of Zavarka

The Russian Civil War in 1917, when the Red Army took over numerous huge tea warehouses in Moscow, Odessa, and St. Petersburg, produced Zavarka, which is essentially a powerful tea-based concentrate. Prior to then, tea was a luxury item reserved for the ultra-rich. It's difficult to pinpoint the origin of zavarka, which in Russian means "to brew" or "to cook," but employees realized that it was more cost-effective to make a huge pot of tea concentrate and then have each individual dilute it according to desire in the 1920s. This became the usual manner of drinking tea in Russia, and not just among the lower classes.

How to Make Russian Tea

The samovar, a heated metal container with a spigot used to boil and dispense water, and typically an attachment that contains the tea concentrate, is important to how tea is traditionally produced in Russia. According to Bonnie Morales, chef/owner of Portland, OR's Kachka Russian restaurant, "The samovar is the Russian table's focal point. Everyone has at least one." The samovar is regarded as a valuable inheritance in Russian families, and it can even be crafted of precious metals with meticulous workmanship for wealthy families.

The samovar is filled with water and put over hot coals to create the tea (nowadays, standard stoves are used). When the water boils, a portion of it is placed into a smaller section of tea to make zavarka, or tea concentrate. To serve the tea, each person is given a little bit of zavarka and then is given the necessary amount of hot water from the faucet to dilute the tea according to their preferences. "You basically have the makings of tea for the rest of the day," Morales adds, "since you can pour a little bit of the concentrate and water out for yourself or your guests anytime you want tea." And, she tells me, getting water to boil back in the day, before the invention of stoves, was a major undertaking.

Zavarka is created using a range of teas, including fruit-based tisanes and herbal teas, which are often made with local berries and plants, as well as black tea (which isn't grown in the area). As a result, the tea may be as weak or as powerful as you want it to be, fruity or bitter. Anyone may make the cup of their dreams.

The podstakannik, metal, and glass goblets that, like the samovar, are typically artistically designed, are another important item of zavarka serving ware. According to Morales, components such as the samovar and podstakannik are now mostly decorative, since the Russian tea-making process has grown much more sophisticated, with electric tea kettles and porcelain cups. Morales' family samovar is only used for an exhibition at Kachka, not for serving tea (though the tea at Kachka is still served in traditional podstakannik from Russia).

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