“The quality of tea is a decision your mouth takes.”

Can you imagine Italy without spaghetti, France without cheese or Czech Republic without beer? I suppose you can’t. Now I can’t imagine Turkey without tea too. :)

I’ll never forget an awesome taste and great smell of Turkish tea which welcomed me here. The best tea taste ever! My first glass and absolute love. Love at first sip… It's so simple - a day without Turkish tea is a wasted day. I'll back home soon and I don't know how to exist drinking Lipton Tea again. I'll miss both - çay and tulip glass. :( Normal cup isn't same...

According to the statistics Turkey’s the fourth consumer of tea in the world.  People drink it always and everywhere but if you want to try real Turkish tea you need to know some rules.

Çay is Turkish traditional black tea produced on the eastern Black Sea coast. This place’s quite uniqe because of special maritime climate. Turkish tea must be… tea so I think because of that I’ve never seen  people who drinked çay with milk here.

What you need to make çay? Hmm…

1. two stacked kettles (çaydanlık) can be aluminum or steel – in the larger lower kettle

    you have to boil water and then some of that water is used to boil a strong decoction

    of tea in smaller kettle;

2. tulip shaped glasses for serving tea – you have to mix water and strong tea in

    proportion you like; Turks prepare two kinds of tea: strong (koyu) or weak (açık);

    tulip glasses are so small (not to let tea be cold) and white (to show an amazing

    colour) or green, blue, red... etc.;

3. cubs sugar (kesme şeker); 
 

4. ...and of course... a good tea, real tea... I'd recommend this one. 

  

Turks drink tea (usually not only one glass) for everything: family meetings, friends meetings, work break, party, breakfast, business meetings and as a friendly gesture for guests. Because of that you have to know that drinking is some kind of ritual for Turks and they never drink tea fast. You shouldn't be hurry. Follow native's example! :) They taste every sip and talk to friends or family. Some families have a secret recipe for preparing an ideal tea and if you aren't a member of this family you can forget about learning it.

PS I could find this kind of glasses...

... and nice shop with thousands kinds of tea bags.