{"id":31591,"date":"2022-08-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/?p=31591"},"modified":"2022-08-17T23:26:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T04:26:22","slug":"lazika-shows-the-untapped-potential-of-turkish-tea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/lazika-shows-the-untapped-potential-of-turkish-tea\/","title":{"rendered":"Lazika Shows the Untapped Potential of Turkish Tea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Turkey, tea is ubiquitous. Tea, or \u00e7ay <\/em>in Turkish, is served at breakfast, after each meal, and during breaks throughout the day. Walk down any Istanbul sidewalk, and you\u2019ll see people perched on balconies and apartment stoops, delicately holding steaming-hot, tulip-shaped glasses on red-and-white striped saucers. On my street, the neighborhood \u00e7ayc\u0131 <\/em>goes door-to-door balancing an enormous tray, delivering fresh drinks to shopkeepers, and picking up empty glasses from earlier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not an exaggeration to say life happens over tea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a whopping 3.16 kg per year, Turkey ranks number one in per-capita tea consumption<\/a> worldwide. That\u2019s almost an entire kilogram more than second-place Ireland, which clocks in at 2.19 kg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tea in question is almost always a concentrated black tea made in a samovar: a large, two-chamber boiler where steam from the bottom chamber heats the tea steeping in the top section. The hot water in the bottom portion is also used to dilute the finished tea, similar to an Americano. These long infusions are strong and bitter and often sweetened by generous amounts of sugar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But one family-owned tea company is trying to change that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A New Chapter For Turkish Tea<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to do things a little differently,\u201d says Yunus Emre Er\u00e7in, co-founder and CEO of Lazika<\/a>, a vertically-integrated tea company based in Rize, Turkey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Er\u00e7in and I met at his tea caf\u00e9 in Istanbul\u2019s Maslak district. A wall-sized timeline traces the emergence of tea drinking in China in 2700 BCE to the planting of the first tea farms in Turkey in the 1920s. He tells me about his business over a fresh infusion of black tea blended with tarragon and safflower. Like all of Lazika\u2019s teas and tisanes, there are no artificial flavors or additives, just dried plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOriginally, I was going to make an electric tea brewer,\u201d says Er\u00e7in. \u201cLike an espresso machine, I wanted to shorten the brewing process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, it takes about 20 minutes to make Turkish tea using a samovar. Er\u00e7in, an industrial engineer by training, believed he could make it more efficient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut then I thought, \u2018First, I need to learn all about tea,\u201d he says. More than seven years later, Er\u00e7in is still exploring the potential of Turkish tea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Er\u00e7in had a significant leg up: his family hails from Turkey\u2019s Black Sea region and, like many families in the area, own a tea field. They followed a common regional practice of separating the best leaves for themselves before blending the rest with their neighbors\u2019 crops to deliver to the local tea processing factory.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Er\u00e7in began to wonder what would happen if they treated all of their tea with the same care. He also studied different ways of processing tea in other countries. His experiments led to Turkey\u2019s first commercially sold oolong tea and a hand-rolled, whole leaf green tea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Better Quality Through Harvesting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It was this hand-rolled green tea that first caught my attention. The tea is floral and delicate in the cup, with aromas of orange blossom, flavors of soft peach, and hints of water chestnut. I would associate the flavor profile with high elevation Chinese or Taiwanese green teas, not the finely-chopped oxidized black tea typically used to make Turkish tea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Er\u00e7in attributes the depth of flavor to the health of the tea plants and the care his partners take when harvesting and processing the tea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the fields, the quality is very good\u2014it\u2019s camellia sinensis<\/em>,\u201d says Er\u00e7in. Originally from China, this variety of tea is often compared to coffea arabica<\/em>. The unique microclimate of Turkey\u2019s Black Sea region\u2014temperate and humid year round\u2014provides an environment where the plant thrives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these environmental factors, Er\u00e7in has seen a steady decline in overall tea quality since the collapse of the state tea monopoly in the 1980s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTea quality continues to get worse. This is not because of the leaves, but from harvesting practices, transportation to the factories, and processing,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Er\u00e7in explains that large tea companies like Lipton and state-owned \u00c7aykur offer no incentives for tea quality, just a flat rate per kilogram. As a result, most tea farmers in Turkey harvest their tea with scissors, which is more efficient but also damages the plant and harvests inferior leaves and parts of the stem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you pick by hand, you only collect the first few leaves on a branch, but if you use scissors, you can get up to 50 cm of the branch,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a growing number of producers within Er\u00e7in\u2019s social network are implementing selective picking practices thanks to training seminars and the cash incentives Lazika offers for hand-picked tea. According to Er\u00e7in, Lazika relies on an informal abla <\/em>network (Turkish for \u201colder sister\u201d) to spread the word about higher prices for hand-picked tea within the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although Er\u00e7in admits it can be challenging to convince his fellow tea farmers to implement best practices, he only sees the potential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had the idea,\u201d he says. \u201cCould this region be known for tea like Champagne is known for wine?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Butterworth<\/strong> is the cofounder of etkincoffee.com<\/a> and thecoffeecompass.com<\/a>. He lives in Istanbul, Turkey. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By reintroducing care-driven harvesting practices and presenting consumers with a variety of different tea styles, Lazika hopes to improve the quality of Turkish tea. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":31594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[29,14270],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLazika Shows the Untapped Potential of Turkish Tea - 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