Samovar Tea Culture

The samovar makes tea a session rather than a cup. Water is heated in the urn by a central charcoal flue; a small pot of very strong concentrate, zavarka, stands on top in the rising heat; each drinker pours a little concentrate and tops it with hot water, so strength is personal and the pot never goes cold or stewed. Around it sits everything else: jam eaten from a saucer or a spoon rather than stirred in, sometimes with the tea sipped through a lump of sugar held in the teeth, dried fruit, bread, pies, honey, biscuits, lemon. The point is duration - tea drinking is what an afternoon is spent on, and refusing a second glass early is mildly rude. Electric samovars replaced charcoal in most homes and the charcoal version survives at dachas and in the country, where the smell of pine cones burning in the flue is part of it.

Highlights

• The concentrate system - strong zavarka diluted to each drinker's taste from the urn.
• The jam from the spoon - preserves eaten beside the tea rather than stirred in.
• The charcoal flue - a central chimney of coals or pine cones, still used at dachas.
• The duration - an afternoon rather than a cup, with refills expected.

When to go

All year; it belongs to cold weather and long evenings. An afternoon.

Practical notes

Most restaurant samovars are electric and decorative, and some are just a kettle on a stand. A charcoal session usually needs a private invitation or a village setting. Tourist tea ceremonies are staged. Buying a working charcoal samovar to take home is heavy and awkward.

Nearby

The Tula samovar museum and the Kazan chak-chak museum both build visits around it.