Armenian tea in Istanbul

We recently wrote about a pre-war ghost sign in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, which advertised the since-then disappeared Loucrezis furniture store in three scripts: Greek, Armenian and Latin. We have now found a similar one on the other side of the Golden Horn. Just a few steps from the Spice Bazaar, at the corner of Vakif Hanı Sokaği and Sultan Hamamı Caddesi stands an eclectic palace with a pointed corner adjusted to the angle of the streets, which cuts like the bow of a ship into the small square before the arched façade of the former Deutsche Orientbank (another ghost sign!).


And this ships carries a valuable cargo. The same ad is written on the sharp corner in three scipts, three languages. In Ottoman Turkish:

چای ایساقولیان

in Armenian:

ԹԷՅ ԻՍԱԳՈԻԼԵԱՆ

and in Latin script:

THÉ ISSACOULIAN

Judging from the first two versions – see the phonetic details in the previous post – the most likely transcription of this Armenian name is Isagoulyan, rendered in the third version according to the rules of French, the most widely used Latin-script languages in turn-of-the-century Istanbul.


According to the Pervititch maps, this building was called Sadıkiye Hanı in the first half of the 20th century. Today it has no inscription, and you cannot find anything about it on the net. Today it houses a children’s clothing store. I don’t know whether Isagoulyan’s tea was merely advertised or also sold here. But it is not impossible that it was also sold, since here, around the spice bazaar were the best delis, like on the other corner the coffee-roasting Yeni Han or Kurukahveci Han.

This ghost sign is also mentioned in the Painted Signs and Mosaics site. According to its author, the Armenian script is actually in Turkish, since until the introduction of the Latin alphabet in 1928, most Turks preferred to use the phonetically handier Armenian alphabet instead of the complicated Ottoman writing. We already mentioned this in the previous post, and there, the Armenian letters in fact rendered a Turkish word. This is probably not the case here. The Armenian name is preceded by the word T’EY instead of the Turkish ÇAY. And this can only be Armenian.

It is an interesting etymological trivia that almost every language of the world uses one of two sounding versions of Chinese 茶 for tea. Those who brought it by ship from China, mostly loaded it in Fujian, like the Dutch, and they spread the local tê pronunciation in Western Europe (except for the Portuguese who loaded it in Macau, and took over the local chàh pronunciation). And those who received it overland, got it through the Silk Road with Persian mediation, who added a -yi ending to the Northern Chinese pronunciation chá. So everyone who got the tea this way, from the Russians to the Turks and Arabs, uses some version of the Persian چای châyi. The WALS map tangibly illustrates this, marking in blue the descendants of tê, and in red those of chá or châyi. And you can easily see that in the red sea around the Caucasus, Armenian is the only defiant blue dot.

There are languages that use both words for tea. Sometimes because they are spoken at the meeting point of two cultures, and sometimes because of some interesting historical twist, as in Moroccan Arabic, where black tea is called the usual šay, but fresh green tea tay, since under Sultan Hassan I, mentioned two posts earlier – when piracy was still a common industry in the country – a captive European crew was exchanged for a cargo of Fujian green tea, and the difference in taste was widely experienced.

According to the commentary of Language Log, Armenians also use both words for tea, although the dictionary only gives the tea version. The origin of chay is understandable there. But, thousands of kilometers away from the oceans, where does tea come from?

Bread

In the crowded market, there is no respite. The endless scurry and buzz of the buyers and sellers flies in the face of the dusty heat of mid-afternoon, which commands lethargy. Scarved women move through, wearing long dresses of printed fabric in screaming loud colors, their ready smiles revealing walls of golden teeth. Stocky men in long overcoats and four-sided embroidered caps clasp their hands together in the small of their backs and study the goods with a wary eye and a practiced indifference, ready to haggle for even the smallest reduction in price.

Young men, some of them boys really, watch over stalls selling tape cassettes of unclear provenance, with photocopied insert cards but no labels. Other boys man stalls that offer cold drinks mixed on the spot, dribbling candy-colored syrup from racks of glass tubes into carbonated water. Butcher stalls reek in the heat from the blood of freshly slaughtered animals as shoppers inspect the offerings and argue for a better cut for their money.

No respite, that is, except for the tea houses, where people sit in the shade, sometimes on elevated platforms with divans and low tables; at other times around western-style tables and chairs. Placed before them are pots of tea — green or black? with milk or without? — sweetened with golden nuggets of grape sugar. Almost invariably, the tea comes to the table in simple ovoid teapots glazed in blue, gold, and white with the stylized image of the cotton boll, representing the major cash crop of the region.

We order our tea — зелёный с молоком, пожалуйста — and consider the journey we have undertaken, to this far side of the world, this most landlocked of places, this Andijon, in the cornucopious and fabled Fergana Valley of eastern Uzbekistan. Here, the foreigner is always watched and cannot rely on the crowd for anonymity. Eyes follow us everywhere, sometimes wary, sometimes curious or bemused, perhaps wondering why we have come, of all places, to this corner of the globe.

We slowly sip, and give our swollen feet a few minutes to shrink a bit from the confines of our road-weary boots, and we watch the baker as he supervises his young assistants, who are loading ball after ball of raw dough into a traditional pit oven, each one destined soon to become today’s fresh bread.

The way of the tea

The Western Lake of Hangzhou, about which Zhang Dai wrote his novel The Search of the Western Lake in Dreams

With a teapot, a Chinese is happy wherever he is.
(Lin Yutang)

Yesterday, in search of the citation of Lin Yutang, I have browsed through the My country and my people after twenty years again. Again I enjoyed its pleasant, conversational style, and I was impressed again by his easiness in translating into the language of Western culture – of course into the language of bygone pre-war culture, which itself requires translation already – his own Chinese world. But I also needed these twenty years to realize that those samples of Chinese literature, art and history he seems to quote so randomly, as if they came to his mind by pure chance, are in the reality carefully chosen by him, thus offering in the middle of easy talking a representative reader of Chinese culture.

When he for example intends to illustrate the importance of tea for the Chinese, he quotes the most famous tea story from the greatest author of the Ming period, from the Dreams and remembrances on Tao An by Zhang Dai (1597-1689). The story is so beautiful that I also have to quote it. Perhaps it will give inspiration to my brother Gyuri to the continuation of his recently opened tea blog of The Lover of the Two Shengs.

Chou Molung often spoke to me in enthusiastic terms about the tea of Min Wenshui. In September of a certain year [1638], I came to his town, and when I arrived, I called on him at Peach Leaves Ferry. It was already afternoon, and Wenshui was not at home. He came back late and I found him to be an old man. We had just opened our conversation when he rose suddenly and said that he had left his stick somewhere and went out again. I was determined not to miss this chance of having a talk with him, so I waited. After a long while, Wenshui came back, when it was already night, and he stared at me, saying, “Are you still here? What do you want to see me for?” I said, “I have heard about your name so long, and am determined to have a drink with you to-day before I go!” Wenshui was pleased, and then he rose to prepare the tea himself. In a wonderfully short time it was ready. Then he led me into a room, where everything was neat and tidy, and I saw over ten kinds of Chingch’i pots and Hsüanyao and Ch’engyao teacups, which were all very rare and precious. Under the lamplight, I saw that the colour of the tea was not distinguishable from that of the cup, but a wonderful fragrance assailed my nostrils, and I felt ever so happy. “What is this tea?” I asked. “Langwan,” Wenshui replied. I tasted it again and said, “Now don’t deceive me. The method of preparation is Langwan, but the tea-leaves are not Langwan.” “What is it then?” asked Wenshui smilingly. I tasted it again and said, “Why is it so much like Lochieh tea?” Wenshui was quite struck by my answer and said, “Marvellous! Marvellous!” “What water is it?” I asked. “Huich’üan,” he said. “Don’t try to make fun of me,” I said again. “How can Huich’üan water be carried here over a long distance, and after the shaking on the way still retain its keenness?” So Wenshui said, “I shan’t try to deceive you any longer. When I take Huich’üan water, I dig a well, and wait at night until the new current comes, and then take it up. I put a lot of mountain rocks at the bottom of the jar, and during the voyage I permit only sailing with the wind, but no rowing. Hence the water still keeps its edge. This water is therefore better even than ordinary Huich’üan water, not to speak of water from other springs.” Again he said, “Marvellous! Marvellous!” and before he had finished his sentence, he went out again. Soon he came back with another pot, and asked me to taste it. I said, “Its fragrance is strong, and its flavour is very mild. This must be spring tea, while the one we just had must be autumn tea.” Then Wenshui burst into laughter and said, “I am a man of seventy, and yet have never met a tea connoisseur like you.” After that, we remained fast friends.

Zhang Dai saw the decline of the Ming dynasty and also lived its destruction (1644), in the course of which he himself lost all his property. During the remaining thirty and some years of his life spent at the Western Lake of Hangzhou he recreated this lost life and world from his memories and dreams in his monumental stream of a family saga, two hundred and fifty years before Proust. It is strange that those great figures of ancient Chinese literature whom we consider the most modern, often created their masterpieces during such destruction between two periods, like Li Yu, the last Tang emperor who was executed in captivity, or Xin Qiji, the brilliant general of the last Song emperor who, before retiring to become a hermit, had to see the terrified imperial court driven to the south of the Jangce signing a humiliating peace with the barbarians defeated by him, a peace that swept off all the result of his victories. This modernity and dreamlikeness of Zhang Dai is emphasized in his recent biography by Jonathan Spence, who has a good sense to put a finger on such themes. In his successful previous book he depicts for example the “palace of memory” used by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci to demonstrate the science of European mnemotechnics to the exceptionally educated emperor Kangxi (whose biography was also composed by Spence). In The question of Hu he reconstructs in the form of a fictive diary the life of the Chinese servant of another Jesuit who, upon his arrival to Europe in 1722 lost his reason at the sight of the totally different culture, while in the Gods Chinese Son he presents the New Jerusalem founded by the Taiping Rebellion that mixed Catholicism with Chinese popular religion. I also want to write on these books later.

Tea Day

Kam, as it is attested by the welcome brainteaser of his web teashop, is a cheerful and meticulous person. The parcel sent by him from Hong Kong with not exactly two and half kilos of tea is covered, to all intents and purposes as a second protective layer, by a mosaic carpet carefully composed of seventy-five stamps of a total value of three hundred nine Hong Kong dollars equalling to some twenty-five euros. Fifty-one stamps of five dollars, twenty of two dollars and sixty cents, and he has even taken care to stick four pieces of fifty cents on the bottom of the parcel, to bind the carpet as it were.


However, the quality of the teas is no laughing matter for Kam. He personally travels about all the tea-districts of China for his ware, following the harvest calendar that he also publishes on his site, including detailed description on the quality of each harvest and on the best way of preparation of each tea, for example like this:

2007 is a hot year, weather-wise. We are getting 30C temperature even in Oct. So Kam wasn't expecting good Autumn tea at all. First batch of 2007 Autumn TGY came out around mid Oct. but Kam found it very unimpressive. Then came the 2nd harvest. Kam test drank, and jumped out of joy through the roof!

This Tie Guan Yin Oolong – that is, half-fermented – tea is one of the standard brands we have been ordering for years in large quantities from Kam. It has a definite, elegant taste with a fine shade of orchid – or, according to others, orange-peel. Another fix item is Jasmine tea. This does not belong to the favorites of tea’s fools, but whoever is fond of it (for example us, boldly confronting the taste terror of Gyuri) is warmly recommended to order it from Kam, because his one is a thousand times more fragrant than anything you can get in Europe. The third brand that we have tried now for the first time is Qi Men Red, the only red tea that figures in the list of the ten most famous Chinese teas. It has a wonderful taste, like fine warm milk, perhaps with a little bit of chocolate. It is very similar to that Caspian tea we have brought from Iran (and about which I will write later).


Our fourth favorite is Dragon Well Before Rain. This is an easy, nevertheless very fragrant green tea. It reminds me of the scent of tender corn cooked together with its fresh leaves that I liked so much in my childhood. We have not ordered of it now only because green tea is the better the more fresh it is, and the new harvest is almost here. And as in Kam’s shop the price of the tea also includes shipping, it means no extra cost if we do not order everything at the same time.

All the four kinds of tea – as it is minimally expected of any good tea – lasts at least three or four boiling, the Qi Men even more. Therefore these teas are in the reality much less expensive than any tea sold in Europe for an apparently lower price. Or even less expensive than the cheaper teas of Kam himself.


It is always a festive day when the yearly tea delivery arrives from Kam. In this year the feast is further enhanced by the fact that two days later a new parcel arrives from the web teashop of Mrs. Jing Lu in Guangzhou. This is the first time we order of her. We do not know yet how it would taste. We will report on it. The package is promising anyway.