Samovar "Ryabinka"

Dumas-Father, the author of a dictionary of culinary, wrote: “in Saint Petersburg and on the whole in Russia people drink best tea.” To his mind it accounted for the fact that tea suffers a lot during long sea voyages, and only Russia among European countries can export tea from China by land. Then China was the only importer of tea which had been known there since ancient times. To India and Ceylon it was brought in 1865. “Russian customs are odd, many people find them shocking when face them for the first time.”, wrote Dumas in his dictionary. He found extremely strange the fact that “men drink tea from glasses and women from china”. By the way it’s important to stress that boiling water in samovars is still common in Russia up to the present, especially in Russian province. And of course Russian samovar reproductions are valued as luxurious funny cool gifts.