Koporye tea or Ivan-tea Fireweed tea (Ivan-tea) is a drink that in the old days was prepared from fireweed leaves. In the first half of the 17th century Chinese tea was brought to Russia. It caught the fancy of people of various social classes. Since foreign tea was expensive, they started to search for alternatives and paid the attention to fireweed, leaves of which they brewed in Russia as far back as in the 12th century. Over time they started making a drink from fireweed, the taste and color of which resembled those of natural tea. They prepared it in the following way: they dried young leaves of fireweed, scalded them with boiling water, ground and then finally dried in a Russian stove. After drying in a stove they ground them once again. As most of this tea was harvested in Koporie, near St. Petersburg, this tea became known as koporsky tea. This product was used in Russia as well as exported to England and other European countries, where it was as famous as Persian rugs and Chinese silk. It was called Russian tea abroad. Britain bought large quantities of this tea preferring Russian tea to Indian tea. In the 20th century production of koporsky tea stopped because of a strong reduction in price for Asian tea. Source: kizhi.karelia.ru/crafts/en This is a medicinally soothing tea, aiding sleep, relieving depression, an anti-inflammatory! Often this tea is drunk before meals. Ivan Teas is also caffeine free. posted by Y
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 16:00:00 +0000
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