How To Make Turkish Tea

Can you imagine a classic Turkish breakfast including menemen, cheese, olives, jams, butter and honey without a large tea pot on the side? It would be incomplete without tea.

A glass of tea and Turkish bagel simit make the quickest breakfast when you are out. We pair Turkish tea with several other foods. Turkish Baklava, Turkish Borek, Turkish Pogaca and mercimek koftesi (lentil balls) are just to name some.

Tea As a Part of Turkish Breakfast

In Turkey, we start the day not with coffee, but with a glass of newly brewed Turkish tea, which has a tempting and stimulating fragrance. Breakfast means tea for us. If there is no tea at breakfast, it lacks the main thing. You know a typical Turkish breakfast includes several foods like olives, cheese, cucumber and tomato slices, jams and eggs.

These must be accompanied by tea as a drink. On the other hand, if you don't have time for breakfast at home during weekdays, you can buy a newly baked crunchy simit from a pastry shop or a street vendor and have it with a glass of tea at work. The  quickest way of breakfast for working people.

As for coffee, we drink it for pleasure. Whenever we want to spoil ourselves. Oh and when saying coffee, I mean Turkish coffee. If you now nothing about it, please check out our How To Make Turkish Coffee post.

We Can Drink Tea Any Time!

Drinking tea is not limited to breakfast time in Turkish culture. Unlike Turkish coffee, which is considered as a more special treat, we are almost every time ready to drink tea. From early morning till the bedtime.

In every home, there is always a tea pot ready on the stove to brew tea for the family or guests. Not only is tea ready to serve to guests at home but also at workplaces.

It is quite normal if you are offered a glass of tea at a bank, at your dentist's or hairdresser's when waiting. When waiting for your package at a fish market, don’t be surprised if the salesperson offers you tea.

It is a way of welcoming your customer, which is a part of our culture. I'm quite sure a typical Turkish person drinks way more tea than water in a day.

It is said that tea removes your tiredness. That’s why people drink tea when they have a break while working. Tea break at workplaces is officially allowed because it is considered as a way of renewing and recharging yourself.

Also, in most workplaces, there is a small kitchen-like room with a Turkish tea set and a person there in charge of brewing and serving tea to the employees every now and then.

Believe it or not, tea is a staple treat even for picnics in Turkey. Traditional Turkish picnic is like a barbeque party with lots of food and people take a tea pot with them to make tea either over wood fire, which definitely enriches the taste of tea, or over a small gas cylinder.

Drinking tea means ending the picnic because it is brewed after all the food (read it meat) is gone.

So although our afternoon tea sessions look like a traditional British tea party with all the pastries we serve, we are not limited to those times. There is always a room for a glass of tea any time during the day.

What Is A Turkish Tea Set?

A Turkish tea set normally contains the following four items:

1. Turkish tea glasses
2. Turkish tiny teaspoons
3. small plates on which you put the glasses
4. a tray to serve all the glasses together.

You can find these easily at online shopping sites that sell Turkish products. When I searched for it on the web, I saw that there are hundreds of types. Choose the one you like if you want to serve tea in an authentic way. One thing that surprised me on those online markets is that they are selling some glasses with lids. This is not something we normally see in Turkey. Really no need for lids.

Turkish tea glasses mostly have a thin waist, which makes it easy to hold. The glasses with holders are another alternative, but they are not that common or famous.

Tiny teaspoons are for people who love their tea sweet. They add cubes of sugar into their tea and give a good stir with those teaspoons. As nobody in my family sweetens their tea, we forgot to include sugar or teaspoons in our tea photography.

While you can buy all these in a Turkish tea set, you can buy them separately as well. If you buy them separately, make sure that the tea glasses fit in the tea plates.

Otherwise, it might be difficult to hold them together as the glass slides from one side to another if it is too small for the plate. It's better if there is a circular space in the middle of the plate for the glass.

How To Make Turkish Tea In A Tea Pot

There are two pieces of our traditional tea pot. As you see in the pictures here, one small and one larger. The small one is placed above the larger one. It is really so easy to brew Turkish tea when you follow these steps:

1. Pour ¼ cup of water in the small tea pot. Add in tea leaves (5 tablespoons for 6 people) and cover with its lid.
2. Fill the large tea pot with water. Put them together (small one above the larger) on the stove over medium high heat. Bring it to boil.
3. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 5 minutes so that the heat reaches the tea leaves in the small tea pot.
4. Transfer more than half of the water in the large tea pot into the small teapot. Fill the large one with additional water and put them back on the stove. Again the small tea pot over the large tea pot. Bring the water to boil first and reduce the heat to the lowest and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. The tea will be brewed as the tea leaves will sink by the end of this time. Then you can either leave tea pot set on the stove over the lowest heat so that the tea keeps hot or remove from heat, serve and reheat when needed.

Notes About Brewing Turkish Tea

Never place the small tea pot which contains leaves directly on the stove just to shorten the time! This will spoil both the taste and the look of the tea. We need to wait for this brewing process. Tea in the small pot is heated thanks to the steam caused by the simmering water in the large tea pot and this takes time for sure.

A real tea drinker hates tea bags as they don’t have the same flavor as the original ones. Tea bags are not brewed at all, they are just put in cups filled with hot water and it’s ready. I think tea bags are like prepackaged foods, as tasteless as them. So if you want to drink a good tea, you must absolutely brew it in a Turkish tea pot set.

One glass of tea is never enough for us, we often want for the second or third or even more. So the measurements here are for 6 people, but not for 6 glasses of tea. Consider it as two glasses for each person, that makes 12 glasses.

How To Serve Tea In Turkey

When it is brewed, you can serve it in Turkish tea glasses or tea cups. There is a certain way of doing this. Fill the quarter of the glass with brewed tea and then complete it with boiled water from the large tea pot. Adjust the amount of tea depending on how you like your tea -strong or lighter. And it is up to you to add sugar into your glass or not.

Some people hate it when they see tea leaves floating in their tea, so they use a small sieve when pouring tea into their glass, but I don't think it's necessary when the tea is finely brewed. Tea leaves stay at the bottom of the tea pot or go to the bottom of the glass then.

As for its service , culturally we prefer drinking tea in a glass specially designed for Turkish tea. You see it in the pictures here. Serving them in Turkish tea cups doesn’t have a very long history in our culture. It has become popular for some years, but tea glasses are still the most preferred.

A few sugar cubes are put near the glass at coffee houses, cafes or tea gardens while sugar is served in a separate bowl at houses. There are certainly people who love their tea without sugar like all my family members. Some prefer their tea strong (with more tea from the small pot and less water) some love it lighter (with less tea and more water). And those who love it light mostly ask for tiny lemon wedges on the side of their tea.

More Turkish Recipes To Serve With Tea

You can serve any Turkish dessert with a glass of tea on the side. We love it with lokum and Turkish cookies with apple filling. It is also great with savory pastries like sigara borek, gözleme and pide too.

Other Turkish Drinks

• Turkish Apple Tea
• Rose Hips Tea
• Salep