How Did Türkiye Become a Tea Country? The Surprisingly Recent History of Turkish Çay
- Seda
- 17 minutes ago
- 13 min read
For readers in a hurry: Tea is part of the daily rhythm of life in Türkiye. It is on breakfast tables, in offices and workshops, on ferries, in bazaars and in the small glasses that keep being refilled during a long visit. Ottoman people knew tea centuries ago, but the black tea culture familiar today developed mainly during the twentieth century. Large-scale cultivation around Rize grew through agricultural experiments and state policy in the early Republic. Within a few decades, locally grown tea acquired its own objects, regional customs and everyday vocabulary, from demli and açık to paşa çayı and kıtlama.
There is a Turkish video built around a simple experiment. During a weekend breakfast, people are told that there is no tea. Hidden cameras record their real reactions. The video was made for a tea brand, so it is advertising, but the situation is familiar. Breakfast is already on the table when people hear the news: Çay yok. There is no tea.
I grew up with tea as part of breakfast, so the reactions in the video do not seem particularly strange to me. Weekend breakfast especially is difficult to separate from the çaydanlık. The food may be finished while the tea continues, one small glass after another.
Tea in the Ottoman Empire
Tea was known in the Ottoman world centuries before large-scale cultivation began in Türkiye. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi traces the earliest references to tea in Ottoman sources to the sixteenth century, although the oldest concrete record of tea actually being served comes from the seventeenth century, in the work of Evliya Çelebi. Tea also appeared in the world of the aktar, the seller of herbs, spices and substances traditionally used for health.
Ottoman writers were interested enough in tea to produce texts devoted to it. In 1711, Şeyhülislâm Damadzâde Ebülhayr Ahmed Efendi wrote a Çay Risâlesi, largely concerned with the qualities and perceived benefits of tea. More than a century and a half later, Hacı Mehmed İzzet Efendi wrote another Çay Risâlesi in 1878. He described himself as a tea drinker of thirty years, placing his own habit as far back as the 1840s.
The identical titles can cause confusion today, although the texts belong to different centuries and different authors.
Tea became increasingly visible in nineteenth-century Istanbul. The TDV account records çayhane, or tea-house, establishments around Divanyolu, Beyazıt and Şehzadebaşı during the second half of the century. Imported tea circulated in the city and appeared in households and institutions alongside the much older Ottoman coffee culture. Tea consumption therefore preceded Turkish tea agriculture by a considerable period.
From Batum to Rize
The agricultural history of Turkish tea developed on the eastern Black Sea coast. Batum, now Batumi in Georgia, already had tea cultivation, and its proximity to Rize attracted the attention of Ottoman agricultural specialists.
In 1917, agricultural expert Ali Rıza Erten examined Batum and its surroundings. His report drew attention to the ecological similarities between that area and the eastern Black Sea coast and proposed that crops grown around Batum could also be cultivated around Rize. The idea became increasingly relevant after the First World War, when agriculture in the region became part of the new Republic's plans for economic development.
Parliament passed Law No. 407 on 6 February 1924. It is sometimes described simply as an early tea law, although its scope was broader. The law concerned the cultivation of hazelnuts, oranges, lemons, mandarins and tea in Rize and Borçka. Tea was still one possibility within a wider attempt to develop the agricultural economy of the region.
Zihni Derin became closely associated with the development of tea cultivation in Rize.
His work helped establish nurseries and expand cultivation, although the industry familiar today emerged through a longer process involving agricultural trials, imported seed, legislation, growers and eventually processing facilities.
The expansion accelerated in the late 1930s. According to ÇAYKUR's official history, Türkiye imported 20 tons of tea seed from Batum in 1937, another 30 tons in 1939 and 40 tons in 1940. The first fresh tea harvest and production of dry tea took place in 1938. Law No. 3788 followed in 1940, creating a more specific legal framework for tea cultivation and support for producers.
In 1942, Law No. 4223 brought coffee and tea under a state monopoly. Five years later, the first major tea-processing factory opened in Rize in 1947. By then, tea was becoming an industry rather than an agricultural experiment.
The green slopes now associated with Rize are largely the product of this twentieth-century transformation. Tea provided a commercial crop for the eastern Black Sea and a domestic source of a drink that could be distributed throughout the country.
Coffee, Tea and a Changing Economy
Coffee already had centuries of history in Ottoman life when locally produced tea began spreading through Türkiye. Coffeehouses had been part of urban culture since the sixteenth century, while Turkish coffee had its own place in homes, hospitality and ceremony. Tea entered this established drinking culture and gradually developed different uses within it.
Economics favoured domestic tea. Coffee beans had to be imported and were vulnerable to shortages, prices and foreign-exchange problems. Tea was increasingly grown inside the country with direct state support. By the 1930s and 1940s, Türkiye was creating an agricultural and industrial system capable of producing its own supply.
Tea was also well suited to frequent service. Turkish coffee is generally prepared in small quantities and requires attention while it cooks. A çaydanlık can remain ready for much longer. One preparation can supply a large family breakfast, an office or a shop with repeated servings, and each person can still receive tea at a different strength.
Coffee remained part of daily and social life while tea became available for many more moments of the day. A Turkish coffee may accompany a visit or follow a meal. Tea can begin at breakfast and return repeatedly until evening.
The Çaydanlık: Açık or Demli
The traditional Turkish çaydanlık consists of two stacked pots. Water is boiled in the larger lower pot. The smaller upper pot contains concentrated brewed tea known as dem.
When tea is served, some dem goes into the glass and hot water is added from the lower pot. The proportions determine the strength. Açık çay contains less dem and more water. Demli çay contains more dem and has a stronger taste and darker colour.
A person serving tea may simply ask:
Açık mı, demli mi?
Light or strong?
In homes where people know each other's preferences, the question eventually disappears. Someone remembers that one person drinks tea açık, another likes it very demli and someone else takes one sugar.
Another familiar expression is tavşankanı, literally "rabbit blood." In relation to tea, it describes a rich reddish colour associated with a well-brewed glass. Several explanations for the historical origin of the expression circulate, while the expression itself is much better established than those origin stories.
The İnce Belli Çay Bardağı
Turkish tea is strongly associated with the ince belli çay bardağı, the small clear glass with a narrow waist.
The form predates the Republic, and industrial production later helped standardise the glass seen across Türkiye today. Research into Turkish glass design has documented older narrow-waisted examples as well as the importance of Paşabahçe in twentieth-century mass production. The evidence points to a form that developed over time rather than a single documented inventor.
The glass leaves the colour of the tea visible and holds a relatively small serving. Tea can be finished while it is still hot and refilled without replacing a large cup. This suits the way tea is often consumed during a Turkish breakfast or visit, where one glass is followed by another.
Bir çay daha?
Another tea?
It is an ordinary question at a table where the çaydanlık may remain for hours.
Paşa Çayı: Tea for Children
I started drinking tea and tasting coffee young, as many of us in Türkiye do. When children wanted to try Turkish coffee, adults sometimes poured a little from the cup into the saucer so it would cool quickly. Tea had its own solution. We were given paşa çayı, pale, weak tea with plenty of water, usually sweet enough to make a child happy.
Paşa çayı is usually prepared with a small amount of dem and plenty of water (and some cold water) so that it is weaker and cooler. The child still has a tea glass at the table and joins the adults, while the contents are much lighter than the tea being served around them.
The origin of the name is uncertain. One popular explanation associates it with Ottoman paşas, while another derives it from the French pas chaud. Reliable historical evidence has not established either explanation as the origin of the expression.
The practice itself remains familiar across generations. Tea enters family life early, often years before a child develops a taste for a properly demli glass.
Çay Ocağı and the Working Day
The çay ocağı carries tea beyond the home. In bazaars, commercial streets and areas filled with workshops, a small çay ocağı may prepare tea for many surrounding businesses.
The person preparing or delivering it is the çaycı. Several glasses can be carried on a suspended metal tray that moves with the carrier. In a crowded market, the çaycı can pass through narrow passages with glasses of hot tea swinging beneath the handle.
The arrangement allows a shopkeeper to remain behind the counter. Tea is ordered from nearby, arrives at the shop, and the empty glass can be collected later. The same system can serve offices, workshops and other workplaces.
Tea consequently runs through the working day as well as domestic hospitality. It can sit beside paperwork, arrive during a business conversation or appear while a customer waits. In some commercial areas, the movement of the çaycı between neighbouring businesses is simply part of the daily street scene.
In 2022, Culture of Çay: A Symbol of Identity, Hospitality and Social Interaction, submitted jointly by Türkiye and Azerbaijan, was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity during the seventeenth session of the Intergovernmental Committee in Rabat. The nomination places tea preparation and serving within a wider culture of hospitality and social interaction.
Kıtlama in Erzurum
Tea culture also has strong regional variations. One of the best known is kıtlama, associated particularly with Erzurum and parts of eastern Türkiye.
With kıtlama, sugar is kept outside the glass. A small piece of hard sugar is placed in the mouth and the tea is sipped with it. Traditional practice also involved breaking larger blocks of sugar into suitable pieces with special sugar shears.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism includes kıtlama among regional Turkish tea practices and specifically associates it with Erzurum and eastern towns. The practice gives the same black tea a different rhythm from a glass in which sugar is dissolved and stirred.
Tea is a national habit in Türkiye, while its preparation and serving still retain local forms. Rize supplies much of the leaf; Erzurum has its kıtlama tradition; individual households have their own preferences for strength, sugar and brewing.
The Curious Case of Apple Tea
Foreign visitors sometimes leave Türkiye with a surprisingly strong association between the country and elma çayı, apple tea.
The association makes sense from the tourist's experience. Apple tea appears in some bazaars, souvenir shops, hotels and businesses accustomed to receiving international visitors. Someone encountering it repeatedly during a holiday can reasonably assume that it occupies a similar place in Turkish homes.
Everyday household tea culture looks different. Apple tea exists and people can certainly drink it, but an unqualified çay normally means black tea.
The historical origin of the tourist association remains unclear. Stories circulate online about shopkeepers creating the custom during the tourism boom of the 1980s.
Another version attempts to connect tourist apple tea with powdered drink brands such as Oralet and Lezzo. Reliable documentation for those origin stories has not been established.
Oralet itself belongs to a separate part of Turkish food history. It was a familiar powdered drink, particularly associated with childhood and home consumption. Its existence does not establish a historical line leading to tourist apple tea.
For now, the documented history leaves us with a simpler distinction. Apple tea became highly visible in parts of the tourism industry, while black tea remained the everyday çay of Turkish homes and workplaces.
Ihlamur, Adaçayı and Herbal Tea
Black tea shares Turkish cupboards with a range of herbal infusions, although their cultural contexts are often different.
Ihlamur, linden, is closely associated with winter and illness in many Turkish families.
When someone has a cold or sore throat, another person may prepare ıhlamur, sometimes with lemon or honey. This describes a familiar domestic tradition rather than a medical claim.
Adaçayı, sage tea, is particularly familiar in the Aegean and Mediterranean regions.
Kuşburnu, rosehip, as well as chamomile and fennel are also common in homes and aktar shops.
The distinction appears naturally in conversation. If someone asks Çay ister misin?, "Would you like tea?", black tea is usually understood. A different infusion tends to be named: Ihlamur yapayım mı?, "Shall I make some linden tea?"
For a Turkish learner, this belongs to the cultural meaning carried by a very basic word. Çay can describe many kinds of tea when another word qualifies it, as in elma çayı or adaçayı. On its own at a Turkish breakfast table, it usually needs no further explanation.
Turkish Around the Tea Table
The vocabulary surrounding tea develops quickly once someone spends time around Turkish speakers.
Çay demlemek means to brew tea. Dem is the concentrated tea in the upper pot. A glass can be açık or demli. Çay koymak is commonly used when pouring or preparing tea for someone. Çay hazır announces that the tea is ready. Bir çay daha? offers another glass.
The language also changes with the setting. A child can have paşa çayı. Someone in Erzurum can drink tea kıtlama. A shopkeeper can call the çaycı, and a workplace can order tea from a nearby çay ocağı.
Even the simple question Çay içer misin?, "Would you like some tea?", belongs to these everyday situations. At a breakfast table it asks about a preference. During a visit it can introduce another round of tea and more time at the table. At work it can accompany a short break or a conversation between colleagues.
The dictionary entry for çay is short. Daily Turkish gives the word a much larger environment.
Objects of Turkish Tea Culture
The material side of tea is equally recognizable: narrow-waisted glasses, a double çaydanlık, loose black tea, herbal infusions and the electric tea makers now common in many Turkish kitchens.
I collected examples of the objects mentioned in this article in one place:
From Rize to the Breakfast Table
The history of locally produced Turkish tea is concentrated within roughly a century. Ottoman writers discussed tea long before that, and nineteenth-century Istanbul had tea houses and imported tea. The large domestic supply that eventually placed black tea on tables throughout the country came from the agricultural development of the eastern Black Sea during the twentieth century.
Rize's tea gardens expanded, factories processed the leaves and distribution carried the product far beyond the Black Sea. At home, the double çaydanlık made repeated servings easy. In workplaces, the çay ocağı and çaycı fitted tea into the working day. Regional habits such as kıtlama remained alongside practices shared across the country.
Children encountered the same culture through paşa çayı and small tastes from the adults' table. Everyday expressions developed around strength, brewing and serving. The drink became familiar enough that çay on its own usually requires no explanation about which tea is meant.
The weekend breakfast experiment at the beginning of this article was filmed many decades after the first serious attempts to establish tea agriculture around Rize. The people at those breakfast tables were reacting to an expectation created within a few generations: breakfast was ready, everyone had sat down, and the tea should have been there.
Vocabulary
çay – Tea. In everyday Turkish, when no other type is specified, the word usually refers to black tea.
dem – The concentrated brewed tea kept in the upper pot of a traditional double teapot.
demli – Strong tea prepared with a larger proportion of dem.
açık – Light tea prepared with less dem and more hot water.
çaydanlık – The double teapot widely used to prepare Turkish black tea.
ince belli bardak – The small, narrow-waisted glass associated with Turkish tea service.
paşa çayı – Weak, cooled tea traditionally given to children.
kıtlama – A regional way of drinking tea with a small piece of hard sugar held in the mouth, associated particularly with Erzurum and eastern Türkiye.
çay ocağı – A small tea operation that often prepares and supplies tea to surrounding shops, offices and workplaces.
çaycı – A person who prepares, serves or delivers tea.
tavşankanı – Literally "rabbit blood"; a description used for a rich reddish colour and, in tea culture, a desirable colour and strength.
ıhlamur – Linden infusion, traditionally associated with winter and being unwell.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Did Turks always drink tea?
A: Tea was known and consumed in the Ottoman Empire centuries before large-scale cultivation began in Türkiye. The locally produced black tea culture familiar today developed mainly during the twentieth century.
Q: When did Türkiye begin growing its own tea?
A: Experiments preceded the Republic, while the decisive development began during the early Republican period. Law No. 407 supported tea cultivation alongside several other crops in Rize and Borçka in 1924. Production expanded substantially during the late 1930s, and the first major tea-processing factory opened in Rize in 1947.
Q: Why is Rize famous for tea?
A: The eastern Black Sea coast has environmental conditions suitable for tea cultivation. Ali Rıza Erten drew attention to similarities between the region and tea-growing Batum in a 1917 agricultural report. Rize later became the centre of Türkiye's domestic tea industry.
Q: Why is Turkish tea brewed in two pots?
A: The upper pot contains concentrated brewed tea, or dem, while the lower pot contains hot water. Each glass can therefore be adjusted according to preference. More dem produces demli tea, while more water produces açık tea.
Q: What is paşa çayı?
A: Paşa çayı is weak, cooled tea traditionally given to children. Several explanations for the name circulate, although its historical etymology has not been established securely.
Q: Is apple tea traditional in Türkiye?
A: Apple tea exists in Türkiye and is particularly visible in tourist settings. Black tea occupies a much larger place in everyday Turkish homes and workplaces. The historical origin of apple tea's strong association with tourism remains unclear.
Q: What is kıtlama tea?
A: Kıtlama is a regional way of drinking tea associated especially with Erzurum and parts of eastern Türkiye. A small piece of hard sugar is held in the mouth while tea is sipped instead of dissolving the sugar in the glass.
Q: What does tavşankanı mean when talking about tea?
A: Tavşankanı literally means "rabbit blood" and describes a rich reddish colour. In tea culture it is used for tea with a deep red colour and desirable strength. The historical origin of the expression is less securely documented than its modern usage.
Sources
For early Ottoman tea culture, the two Çay Risâlesi works and the development of tea drinking in nineteenth-century Istanbul:
For Ali Rıza Erten, Zihni Derin, imported tea seed, the first harvest and the development of tea cultivation around Rize:
For the early nursery and agricultural research programme:
For kıtlama, tea preparation and the social practices surrounding Turkish tea:
For the 2022 inscription of the shared tea culture of Türkiye and Azerbaijan:
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