Asian Tea

In the taste of a single cup of tea you will eventually discover the truth of all the ten thousand forms in the universe. It is difficult to put this taste into words or to even catch a hint of it. – THE VENERABLE CH’AN (ZEN) Master Kyongbong Sunim, In John Blofield’s THE CHINESE ART OF TEA (1985) In Asia, lies the origin of tea. It is not known exactly when tea began as...
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Russian Tea

Tea was brought to Russia from Northern China, where it was called ‘cha-i’ or ‘cha-e’, that is why in Russia the drink got the name ‘chay’ (tea). Originally, though, in Russian records, tea was often called ‘the Chinese herb’ or ‘the Chinese dry herb’. Two kinds of tea were brought from China: brick-tea and loose tea (baykhovy). The etymology of the word ‘baykhovy’ is...
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Turkish Tea

Tea drinking in Turkey actually dates back to the 1600s. According to one legend, Coffeehouses, recently introduced by the Syrians into mainstream Turkish culture, had quickly become places where men would gather to drink coffee, puff on hookahs, play tabli, and discuss the affairs of the day. But around 1633, after a series of fires caused by hookahs swept through the land, an angry sultan...
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