Düzce: Turkish Tea (Party)

Photo taken at Editor Café

To describe Turkish tea as a pleasant beverage is to lie; it is however an interesting national phenomenon in Turkey. Turkish tea glasses - full, half full, or empty - can be found everywhere, and even on the sidewalks of the streets you can often see some glasses scattered here and there and young boys on bicycles running around you holding plates full of tea which they distribute; tea delivery guys, I call them. Living in Turkey feels like living in a constant tea party, tea for breakfast, tea after lunch, tea with cigarettes, tea during breaks, etc. A colleague told me that the average Turkish person drinks around ten glasses of tea a day. It was also rather interesting to know that the Black Sea region is where most of the black tea is produced. The Black Sea and the black tea: Edgar Allen Poe would have loved this.

A glass of tea randomly found
on the stairs

The Turkish tea pots are rather unique, two pots on top of each other, the first one only contains boiling water, which must remain on an open stove at all times, and another pot for actual tea. So what the Turkish do is, they fill half the tea glass with the actual tea and the other half with the boiling water, this way it is less strong (but strong nonetheless). Something which skipped my attention and I learned about through a colleague is that the tea pots differ in materials. Porcelain is apparently the best to make good tea, but I haven't seen any so far.

The tea glasses are one of the few small things I fell in love with in Turkey, they are tulip-shaped, made of glass of course, and they differ in size from the quite small to the rather big. The tea saucers are much more diverse in terms of colours, shapes, and materials. Sometimes they are made of glass, other times of wood, metal, or ceramic. I want to own all of them (and this is coming from a minimalist xD). Sometimes I order tea for the simple reason of wanting to look at the glass, or, when I'm at a new place, for the hope of discovering something new, a new shape or colour perhaps; and the Turkish always surprise me.

Be careful though, when you are at a tea-shop, WATCH over your glass, the waiter will take it away very quickly if he assumes you've finished; even if you're still drinking it. My Pakistani friend jokingly said, sometimes they even grab it off your hand as you're sipping it xD. And then he told me a trick I didn't know about, if you put your spoon inside the glass, it means you've finished, even if it's half full.

Now, if you are in Düzce, what are the best places for tea, you might ask? I have two favourite places here: Editor, and Erguvan Sosyal Tesisi. If you're looking for a comfy area for a private conversation, to meet some friends, or simply to play chess or other games, then go for Editor. The waiter at Editor also speaks English, which is quite impressive and adds some sort of a charm to the place itself. The other waiter doesn't speak English but she's awfully lovely! Editor would also be a good option for non-smokers. Besides the tea, they make a perfect Dibek coffee, served with one lokum and a smile :). If it's a good day outside and you want a nice place to have a quick glass of tea at the city-centre, then go for the second option, a nice view, some sculptures behind you, and it's the cheapest tea I've found in the city, so far. There are also many, many small tea-shops all around the city, if you're adventurous enough, why not try one of them! If you're reading this and you have other suggestions, hit me!