2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The tea-drinking ceremony, which originated in Buddhist monasteries, helped a person to abandon worldly vanity, to feel the closeness of Eternity, contact with which helps spiritual improvement. Although the Russian tradition of tea drinking differs from the Buddhist one, it is also full of peace and peace of mind
Long way to the Russian table
Almost 60 centuries have passed since the people who lived in the territory of modern China and Myanmar (Burma) began to brew the leaves of a wild-growing tea bush with boiling water, getting an invigorating drink.
A special heyday of the tea-drinking ceremony came in the 6th century BC, with the advent of Buddhism. Legends even associate the birth of tea bushes with a monk who fell asleep during prayer, who, upon awakening, decided to punish his eyelids, which closed at the wrong moment, and tore them out (according to some versions, only eyelashes were pulled out), throwing them on the ground.
Allegedly, from these eyelids or eyelashes, tea bushes grew on the ground, a drink from the leaves of which became an assistant to the monks in their prayers. The Buddhists apparently did not know that tea bushes were born much earlier than their religious teachings.
Tea reached Russia only in the 17th century, becoming a drink for the rich due to its high cost.
The boomerang principle
The "fashion" for counterfeiting food products, which modern trade generously treats us to, is an old phenomenon. Ever since the time of Catherine II, when the cost of imported Chinese tea was high, nimble people were found who began to mix Russian tea made from the leaves of the fireweed plant to it.
The production of such tea was established by a landowner who owned the village of Koporye, from whose name the tea was also called "Koporsky". Although at one time Koporye tea was one of the exported Russian goods, its prices were much lower than Chinese ones. This was used by lovers of profit for nothing, mixing tea from fireweed to imported from China.
But any catch comes back like a boomerang. The British, in order to oust Russian tea from the world markets, started a rumor that Russians were mixing white clay into their tea, which is dangerous to human health. We are still reaping the results today, buying Indian or Ceylon tea marked "made in England" in the store.
Blooming Sally
For a long time, tea made from fireweed was a popular drink in Russia, because the raw materials grew outside the outskirts of any village and were available to mere mortals. Therefore, the plant "fireweed" received another name - "Ivan-tea".
The popularity and availability of tea made from fireweed gave birth to another production - the manufacture of pot-bellied samovars, which have become one of the symbols of Russia.
After all, the Russian soul loves to do everything on a grand scale, and therefore "three sips" of tea, which they welcome guests in Japan, have turned into long feasts over a pot-bellied bucket samovar. The guest, overwhelmed by aromatic tea with Russian kulebyaka stuffed with sturgeon, announces his satiety by turning the glass upside down.
Although fireweed tea is several dozen times less strong than the Japanese "three sips", which looks more like whipped cream than our usual tea, it tastes good and invigorates a tired person. (Japanese tea is tea leaves, ground to the consistency of a powder, to which boiling water is added drop by drop, while whipping the mixture until fluffy).
The herbaceous plant fireweed is the first to heal earthly wounds after fires and felling, covering the wounded earth with a pink-lilac cloud of its racemose inflorescences. Already after him, white-trunk birches and aspens with leaves trembling from a light breeze rush to the rescue. And there, you see, a little Christmas tree huddled under a birch tree, fleeing under its crown from the hot spring rays of the sun. After 3-4 years, the wounds of the earth are no longer visible.
Ivan tea is also an excellent honey plant, giving a person fragrant honey for tea. Such a difficult and at the same time simple Russian Ivan-tea.
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