Bellevue-Tea.co.uk

After a few days in Istanbul, I realised that tea is as much of an institution in Turkey as it is in the UK. I had always thought that coffee was the preferred beverage of the Turks, but I now know that when it became very expensive to import after the First World War, tea drinking was encouraged. Hooray! And so it should be!

Tea has been grown in Turkey since the 1940s even though it’s a long way from the tropics, where tea is usually grown, rather surprisingly Turkey ranks 5th in the world’s tea producers. Tea is certainly at the heart of Turkish life and offering tea is considered to be a sign of friendship and hospitality. It is served in small tulip shaped glasses without milk and is usually sweetened with sugar. I quite enjoyed sweetening my tea for a change. It was a welcome injection of energy while sightseeing. Black tea is normally served and apple tea is very popular too.

We saw tea being consumed by everyone from the restaurant tout trying to keep warm on a damp winter’s evening to the shopkeepers in the Grand Bazaar. It is sold out of booths in the walls of Hagia Sophia or off carts pushed around the small streets near Istanbul’s spice bazaar. On a boat trip on the Bosphorus a tea seller was kept busy plying the day trippers on the upper and lower decks with hot tea.

Certainly drinking tea without milk makes it much easier to serve and having fresh, hot tea always available everywhere is one of life's splendid little luxuries in Turkey. I would recommend it to anyone.