My Persian tea traditions
If you follow me on instatgram, you’ll notice that I mostly share my gongfu style brewing sessions but that isn’t the only tea in my life! I share about that most often because it is newer to me and I am still finding out so much about tea through that style of brewing. I also want to share so that more people will try it! Please note that Persian tea culture encompass many different traditions and I am just sharing what my family practiced, it is not the end all be all.
Many people ask me when I started drinking tea and the answer is young. I don’t remember exactly what age but it was definitely in the 5-7 range. Most mornings we would eat noon-paneer (sheep milk cheese bread and walnuts) and sweet tea! This isn’t exactly sweet tea like in the south. The way the tea is brewed is very strong so we often would drink tea with a little sugar. The way I have shared before was with a sugar cube that you place in your mouth and keep there so as you drink, each sip is sweetened. I’m going to share some other ways we sweetened our tea too!
Let’s get down to the tea first. In my household and most Persian households, you will find black tea as the staple. While the type can vary, I feel like most of my family drinks exclusively ceylon. Below is a photo of the tea that I drink every morning. It’s from quality tea co and it’s called “best tea” which I personally find very fitting. As you can see it’s a loos leaf ceylon and compared to some ceylon that is a bit more broken up, this has relatively longer leaves. I do notice that the size of the leaf varies between sizes of packages I buy.
This tea is tossed with bergamot oil. You’re probably thinking, oh so it’s an earl grey. Not quite. I’m not sure the difference because I’ve had other ceylon earl greys and they just do not compare to this. The aroma is so lovely and reminds me of my childhood and grounds me every single morning.
I brew this plain with a little honey because it’s the only tea I like sweetened, I think out of habit but there are times that other ingredients are put into the tea!
Rose and rosewater are common ingredients in Iranian food and sweets. I have had this tea prepared with rose and rosewater. While I love rosewater in sweets, I prefer the whole rosebuds. I often see tea companies that have “persian rose” type tea blends use rose buds as well. I throw a few rosebuds in sometimes when I brew. Growing up, we rarely had this type of tea at our house because my parents liked it more plain but some of my relatives would brew it this way when we would visit. A visit to my relatives consisted of walking through the door, tea would be ready or almost ready and everyone would grab a cup and sit down to talk.
One other way that I did have it sometimes but it was rare was with saffron. Saffron is another common ingredient in both sweets and our dishes. I for example use saffron every day when I cook. Sometimes you will see this tea with saffron threads brewed in it. It seems that some Persian/Iranian restaurants you go to serve tea this way to share a more unique experience.
Now onto the brewing. Iran wasn’t always a tea drinking country. They were actually majority coffee drinkers until the 15th century so it’s no surprise that we like our tea STRONG. Most Persian households will have a ghouri or samovar. I do not have one only due to space, once I have more space I will be getting one first thing! If you’ve never seen one, it’s basically a double decker set up with the bottom being the water kettle and the top being the tea pot. See a simple example below.
If you look back to more historical ones, they are very decorative. You can find some like that nowadays, we have a few that my family was able to bring from Iran. Many modern ones are free standing and plug in instead of using the stove.
Essentially how this works is that you boil the water in the bottom kettle then you pour the boiling water with tea in the top one. Then you put both back on the stove and let it brew until it’s super strong! While I do enjoy tea this way, it definitely doesn’t follow brewing instructions and is probably burning the tea some :D
The other thing to know when serving tea is “kam rang” and “Poor rang” which is basically like lighter or darker tea. As a kid, one of your tasks is to learn to make and serve tea to your family! I’ve shared before that my mom had a loving nickname for me “kolfat chai” which is like tea butler LOL. So since the stronger tea is in the top and you have water in the bottom, someone who wants a weaker tea you might pour half brewed tea half water and change it up for a stronger tea. Many people just like to have a cup full of the top kettle. This double feature also allows you to keep the tea hot or reheat easily.
The other usual way we enjoyed tea growing up was in small glasses. These are Turkish glasses that my sister brought home for me on a trip but persian ones are very similar. some have handles even though they are smaller but many don’t. Generally you would have several glasses of these smaller cups. Nowadays, I drink my morning and evening tea out of glass too but they are larger and with a handle. This is out of convenience.
A lot of households would have these turkish style tea cups as well as Persian ones. One style that I often saw growing up and I recently ordered myself are cups that feature Shah Abbas or Abbas the Great who was considered one of the greatest rulers in Persian history.
The first sweetener I wanted to share with you is “ab nabat” which I believe is what you call rock candy in English. The rock candy we had wasn’t artificially colored and usually wasn’t on a stick. It was either normal colored or tinted slightly because it was infused with saffron. This one pictured is held together by a string that you’ll find once it melts. Ab nabat was my parents cure all for stomach aches. They would put it in either tea or hot water and it always worked! It was also one of my favorite ways to sweeten my tea when I was younger if we had it.
This other method may be somewhat strange but it’s actually great, raisins! Instead of darker raisins, we use green ones and they were always a bit dryer and longer. These are a little tart but also very sweet and having them alongside your tea sweeten it up! These were often used as the”healthier” version to the sugar cubes or ab nabat.
Which would you choose? Rock candy or raisins?
If you’re interested in checking out some options, I created a list that has some options. Please note that if you purchase any of these items through my link, I will earn a small comission at no extra cost to you.
How I fell In love with tea
I want to take this journey back to the 90’s and my childhood. My love of tea started here. Noon panir and chayee shirin for breakfast - Persian bread and cheese with sweet tea. I’ve always been anti tea bag, my dad used to tell me that tea bags were the dregs of tea and that loose leaf was the only way to go!
We generally drank different black teas, mostly ceylon. The tea that strikes such fond memories and the one I still drink to this day is a loose leaf ceylon that is tossed with bergamot oil. While many people call this “earl grey” I guarantee you it’s a bit different. I’ve also had many versions of ceylon that are essentially blends. Some people put things like rose buds, cardamom and even saffron in their tea!
While these were the only things that I drank, I thought I was a tea expert. In reality I actually only knew about black tea and really, the black tea that I drank.
As I grew older, tea became more routine. As a kid, I drank it often but it wasn’t something I craved. High school definitely set off something in me. I drank tea like it was my job. It was a delicious thing in my daily routine and also something that I got to share with my mom and dad.
My parents divorced when I was younger and in High School I spent more time at my mom’s house. We drank tea together a lot. Once I started to make the tea “right” it became my job. She lovingly referred to me as kolfateh chayee - tea butler. The nickname became a family wide joke that is still used. My mom was especially sad when I moved out because she was losing her kolfateh chayee. My younger siblings tea making skills are not up to snuff !
Fast forward to college, in my dorm room you could always find grits, fruity pebbles, my electric tea kettle, mug, ceylon and a tea infuser. I drank tea all day and night. It was always something I was known for. I was a “tea” person as opposed to coffee like most everyone else. To me, tea was just a normal part of my routine. Still, I only drank my ceylon and railed against green teas because they were bitter. In reality, I just didn’t know how to brew it.
I always had a passion to start my own blog and shop but didn’t know what to do. I have so many passions but I always thought that nobody would care what I would have to say or buy what I create. After college and starting my current job (several years ago), I felt stuck. While I liked my job generally, I didn’t have the artistic creation that I so badly needed.
I decided that I would focus on tea and started a blog where I reviewed different teas. I really didn’t know much about tea other than what I drank! So I started trying teas I would find or that companies would send me. A lot of the time, these teas were different blends. Then, I was gifted a tea book where I started to read about the history of tea, how it’s brewed, the cultivars etc!
After “reviewing” blends for a while I decided to switch to cooking and baking with tea because I felt more excited about that and that I know more about it than trying to review teas. My taste for blends started to falter (except my ceylon) and I tried pu’er for the first time. The rest is history!!!
So, thanks to the lovely ceylon leaves my heart was primed for tea and that love has only grown more and more daily!
I wanted to share two things that you can find online. The candy above which is a delicious saffron candy with cardamom seeds in it can be found here. These are a great sweet with tea if that’s your thing and was also a cure all for stomach aches :)
The cheese I mentioned you can find here. If you’re weary about buying cheese online, take the brand name to your local international supermarket and see if they have it!
Finally, if you want to try the tea that started it all you can find it here.
What tea started your tea journey?!
Ceylon Infused Old Fashioned
You may or may not be surprised but I infused my fav ceylon with my fav, bourbon! I then made an old fashioned because I needed a fancy drink that day!
Let me back up, the idea had always intrigued me but I was given the extra push by my friend Lu Ann from The Tea Cup Of Life who infused oolong into her wine! I saw it and thought how cool it was but how I didn't have wine nor did I really like wine. I decided that the obvious choice was bourbon and that why not infuse my everyday tea with it, ceylon!
Something important to note, aromas are so important when drinking and the fact that my ceylon tea has bergamot oil in it, is a game changer!
I wanted to wake up the tea leaves before infusing the bourbon so I ran warm (not hot) water over them. You should be able to see just like with another black tea especially, some of the warm liquid showing color of the leaves. If the water is coming out of your strainer clear, turn up the heat of the water a little bit.
For comparison from left to right: Brewed ceylon, non infused bourbon, Ceylon infused bourbon
Next I simply put about a tablespoon of the leaves into the pot and covered it with bourbon. For a drink like Bourbon, I didn't use a lot of alcohol because it's not like wine where you can fill your glass to the top and drink it. I simply poured enough bourbon to cover the leaves. This also proves for a very strong infusion so if you want it less potent, decrease the amount of tea leaves.
I left the leaves and bourbon to mingle all night and in the morning when I took a small sip, BAM ceylon flavored bourbon. I think that they two flavors paired well with each other and that's why it's so successful. I also think a puer would be ideal for a darker liquor like bourbon.
I had this strong infused bourbon and thought that it was perfect for an old fashioned. Throw some bitters and brown sugar in a glass then add the infusion! I decided to garnish it with a date because the normal orange rind would interfere with the flavors. Taking nibbles of the date between sips was also delicious!
Ceylon Leaf Cookies
Bakinspiration.
Ok, ok.. I know that's not a word but I retrieved a print from Lily & Val! Valerie is an incredible artist and hand draws these images with chalk on a chalk board then digitizes them. I was so excited to get this in the mail.
Today was really gloomy and this print got here just in time. Life is what you bake it is probably going to be my new life motto!
I decided to take a basic earl grey cookie recipe and use ceylon tea instead.
Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons grated orange zest
- 2 cups flour
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1/2 confectioner's sugar
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 tablespoons crushed ceylon leaves (or tea of your choice)
- Zest the orange!
- Crush the tea leaves!
- Cream butter with sugar and add orange zest
- Mix dry ingredients together
- Gradually add dry ingredients to butter mixture
- Cut the dough in half and roll into logs on parchment paper
- Wrap parchment paper around logs and place in freezer until the logs are firm
- Cut the logs into slices and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper
- Bake for 13 -15 minutes or until edges are golden brown
Review: Delicious and buttery. The orange zest is a subtle but great addition to the taste.
Regrets: I didn't crush the tea leaves as much as I should have
