Russia

These days, I'm a little scared to Google Russia. They have been in the news a lot lately, and it has not been flattering. Maybe the person whose name is so frequently used in conjunction with Russia should start to refer to it as Pottsylvania. Nobody would ever catch on. Incidentally, I did watch the first episode of the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" reboot on Amazon Prime. Apparently Dream Works has taken them on. It was a little strange watching the 2 main characters fighting with each other, and the plot is a modernized version of the "Banana Formula" (H2O, NH3, C2H5, PDQU235, and a pinch of salt) episode from way back when. I guess this makes me old.

Russia is about much more than spies and meddling. Technically they are one of our closest neighbors since there is only a two and a half mile gap between an Alaskan island and a Russian island where the international date line divides the days. Alaska is yesterday, and Russia is tomorrow. Actually, The Moth Radio Hour has several stories involving Russia (with varying amounts of relation to Russia itself).

I also know that I've heard over and over that Russian samovars are totally confusing to people outside of Russia. They run on the same principal as the samovars used in the Middle East, but there are some differences. I know that there is reference to hot coals or wood fires being used to make tea. After some research, I found this video. Now it makes sense where the fire goes. I also have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of having to make tea outside in a region of the world that is so cold. Granted, in the video, they say that the grandmother who walked through a forest all day to buy this and bring it home didn't use it very much because it was an inconvenience.


Since I've previously made strong black tea with hot water to taste, you can look back at previous posts where I have experimented with this.

There are several other countries that make some form of Russian tea. Real Russian tea, not those terrible American church fundraiser cookbook versions of "Russian tea".
I wasn't able to find much information on the country of Georgia, and how they make their tea, but it seems that they probably make tea like Russia. There are a couple of other countries that were part of the Soviet Union that seem most likely to make Russian tea. They are Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.



Comments

  1. We were recently watching the Upsidasium story arc.

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    Replies
    1. Oh to be on an island floating in the sky. Of course it would probably be colder higher up in the atmosphere and snowing (sigh).

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