Greetings,

My brother is goint to a longer trip to Iran in late October - early
November. He will take a train from Istambul to Tehran, and a bus on the
same way back to Istambul. I really envy him. :-) Among other things, he
would like to experience the tea culture of the country. Does any of the
more experienced and widely travelled members of this NG has some
recommendations about which teas he should try and which tea houses he
should visit during his stay in Tehran?

Thanks in advance,
Gyorgy

On 2007-09-17, Gyorgy Sajo wrote:
My brother is goint to a longer trip to Iran in late October - early
November. He will take a train from Istambul to Tehran, and a bus on the
same way back to Istambul. I really envy him. :-)

Me too! Theirs is one of my favorite cuisines in the world.

Among other things, he
would like to experience the tea culture of the country. Does any of the
more experienced and widely travelled members of this NG has some
recommendations about which teas he should try and which tea houses he
should visit during his stay in Tehran?

No help from me, but I look forward to reading the answers!

N.

On 2007-09-17, Gyorgy Sajo wrote:
My brother is goint to a longer trip to Iran in late October - early
November.

Hi Gyorgy,
How was your brother's trip? Does he have any good tea stories?

N.

"Natarajan Krishnaswami" skrev i en meddelelse
...
On 2007-09-17, Gyorgy Sajo wrote:
My brother is goint to a longer trip to Iran in late October - early
November.

Hi Gyorgy,
How was your brother's trip? Does he have any good tea stories?

N.

Hi,

Yes, he had quite a trip, and he had some very interesting teas back with
him, too.

To start with, he searched quite a long time in vain for any genuine Persian
teas. In spite of that Iran is a tea producing country, they sell and drink
Indian teas most places. It is true even of such places as Tabriz, the
capital of East Azerbaijan, one of the tea producing areas of Iran. The
sellers at the city market had a very low opinion about local teas and they
kept recommending Indian teas for him. In spite of it my brother bought some
of the highest priced local teas, but when he tasted it at the hotel he
found it indeed so bad that he discarded the rest of it.



A couple of days later after moving to a hotel in Teheran he told about his
frustrating experiences to the hotel manager. To his great surprise the
manager offered to share some of his own tea with him. It turned out that he
was from the city of Masouleh which lies in an important tea producing area
near the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. He used to receive regular
shipments of the local tea for his own consumption and sometimes he even
sold some of it to the hotel's guests. He even claimed that a group of
tourists from Japan (!) were so enthusiastic about this tea that they
contacted him after returning to Japan, begging for more.



The manager used to receive this tea in half a kilo sealed bags and he let
my brother buy one of those bags. My brother was so mindful that he waited
with opening the bag until he returned from Iran and let me have the honor
of the first tasting.



As I opened the bag, the rich, sweet and malty scent of the dry leaves hit
my nose immediately. It had a promise of a tea of great body. The heavy,
luscious scent reminded me both of some very nice Autumn Flush Darjeeling
teas and of some better Ceylon black teas. I must say, surprisingly, because
the small black broken leaf particles did not look very promising. I
prepared the tea with boiling water and let it steep for five minutes. The
taste confirmed my positive expectations. It was malty with a huge sweetness
and it resembled quite a lot an Autumn Flush Darjeeling with heavy scents of
fallen autumnal leafs. I would describe it as a full bodied tea with very
lasting and pleasant sweet aftertastes. My brother had some interesting
associations when drinking this tea: its round, velvety taste reminded him
of warm milk. All in all a quite interesting, unique black tea.



My brother has also promised that he will report about tea houses in Iran,
so stay tuned.



Gyorgy

On Dec 30 2007, 7:00*am, "Gyorgy Sajo" wrote:
"Natarajan Krishnaswami" skrev i en . org...

On2007-09-17, Gyorgy Sajo wrote:
My brother is goint to a longer trip to Iran in late October - early
November.

Hi Gyorgy,
How was your brother's trip? *Does he have any goodteastories? *

N.

Hi,

Yes, he had quite a trip, and he had some very interesting teas back with
him, too.

To start with, he searched quite a long time in vain for any genuine Persian
teas. In spite of that Iran is ateaproducing country, they sell and drink
Indian teas most places. It is true even of such places as Tabriz, the
capital of East Azerbaijan, one of theteaproducing areas of Iran. The
sellers at the city market had a very low opinion about local teas and they
kept recommending Indian teas for him. In spite of it my brother bought some
of the highest priced local teas, but when he tasted it at the hotel he
found it indeed so bad that he discarded the rest of it.

A couple of days later after moving to a hotel in Teheran he told about his
frustrating experiences to the hotel manager. To his great surprise the
manager offered to share some of his ownteawith him. It turned out that he
was from the city of Masouleh which lies in an importantteaproducing area
near the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. He used to receive regular
shipments of the localteafor his own consumption and sometimes he even
sold some of it to the hotel's guests. He even claimed that a group of
tourists from Japan (!) were so enthusiastic about thisteathat they
contacted him after returning to Japan, begging for more.

The manager used to receive thisteain half a kilo sealed bags and he let
my brother buy one of those bags. My brother was so mindful that he waited
with opening the bag until he returned from Iran and let me have the honor
of the first tasting.

As I opened the bag, the rich, sweet and malty scent of the dry leaves hit
my nose immediately. It had a promise of ateaof great body. The heavy,
luscious scent reminded me both of some very nice AutumnFlushDarjeeling
teas and of some better Ceylon black teas. I must say, surprisingly, because
the small black broken leaf particles did not look very promising. I
prepared theteawith boiling water and let it steep for five minutes. The
taste confirmed my positive expectations. It was malty with a huge sweetness
and it resembled quite a lot an AutumnFlushDarjeelingwith heavy scents of
fallen autumnal leafs. I would describe it as a full bodiedteawith very
lasting and pleasant sweet aftertastes. My brother had some interesting
associations when drinking thistea: its round, velvety taste reminded him
of warm milk. All in all a quite interesting, unique blacktea.

My brother has also promised that he will report aboutteahouses in Iran,
so stay tuned.

Gyorgy

Hi,
If you are a tea lover specially for Darjeeling tea then you
should visit the Tea Emporium of Darjeeling,they have a great
selections of single estate Darjeelings ,they also have a web-store
http://www.teaemporium.net from where you can order their teas online
also I know one of them very well he is the elder-son (2nd gerenartion
in tea -biz) Rajiv and this guy is a tea taster you should also visit
his blog http://www.teaemporium.blogspot.com ......anyways interesting
story!

It's good to know that there are still pockets of expertise producing
teas to the old standard.

The general poor quality of Iranian tea now available reflects the
virtual demise of the once flourishing local industry - caused
primarily by the inept management of the State Tea Organization that
(like Soviet Russia) concentrated on quantity rather than quality and
thus has pushed half a million tea farmers further into poverty. Last
time I looked at it (2005) there was 80% of the crop stored unsold in
warehouses and no payment made to farmers, while tea is openly
smuggled in from India.

Nigel at Teacraft

On Dec 30 2007, 2:00*am, "Gyorgy Sajo" wrote:
As I opened the bag, the rich, sweet and malty scent of the dry leaves hit
my nose immediately. It had a promise of a tea of great body. The heavy,
luscious scent reminded me both of some very nice Autumn Flush Darjeeling
teas and of some better Ceylon black teas. I must say, surprisingly, because
the small black broken leaf particles did not look very promising. I
prepared the tea with boiling water and let it steep for five minutes. The
taste confirmed my positive expectations. It was malty with a huge sweetness
and it resembled quite a lot an Autumn Flush Darjeeling with heavy scents of
fallen autumnal leafs. I would describe it as a full bodied tea with very
lasting and pleasant sweet aftertastes. My brother had some interesting
associations when drinking this tea: its round, velvety taste reminded him
of warm milk. All in all a quite interesting, unique black tea.