Samovar

Definition

The samovar (самовар, roughly "self-boiler") is a metal urn with a central pipe or heating element that keeps a large volume of water hot for hours. Traditional samovars burned charcoal or pinecones in the central tube; most modern ones are electric. The city of Tula, south of Moscow, became the center of samovar manufacture in the late 18th century and remains associated with it. The samovar does not brew tea itself. A small teapot sits on a crown at the top, warmed by the rising heat, and holds zavarka (заварка), a very strong concentrate of black tea. Each drinker pours a little zavarka into a glass or cup and dilutes it to taste with hot water from the samovar's tap. Strength is set individually, and the same pot of concentrate serves a table for a long sitting. Russian tea drinking used the samovar as the center of household hospitality, and the habit spread to Iran, Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of Eastern Europe. Turkish tea uses a related concentrate-and-dilute system with a stacked double teapot, the çaydanlık, rather than a samovar.