Changes

Tea poured from a little teapot into an even smaller teacup, mixed with a dab of milk and sweetened with sugar – that’s just one way of serving tea. The American idea of a tea party, for example, is to dump it all into the ocean, which once peeved the Brits so much that an entire war broke out. What’s even worse, no milk was added at all.

The Russian way is different still. First you boil water in a big metal urn called ''samovar'', or “self-boiler”. Then you open a tap in the side of the urn to pour the boiling water into a teapot filled with tea leaves and put the pot on top of the ''samovar'', where it continues to be heated by the water. You let the leaves steep for some time until you brew a very strong tea called ''zavarka''. Once it’s ready, you pour some ''zavarka'' into glasses (yes, glasses!) and fill with more boiling water from the tap. This way everyone can adjust the strength of their tea to their liking. Each glass is placed in a special metal holder called ''podstakannik'', or “under-glass”, so that you don’t scorch your fingers. A typical ''podstakannik'' is made of some sort of nickel alloy; in the past, wealthy Russians used to have their ''podstakanniki'' made of silver, but they quickly realized that this metal is too good a heat conductor. So you’ve got your ''zavarka'' brewed in your ''samovar'', all you need now is to sweeten your tea with some fruits cooked in syrup, known as ''varenye''.