Turkey plants tea at Rize, and becomes a tea nation
A deliberate twentieth-century state project to replace an import with a domestic crop, and one of the most complete national conversions to tea drinking anywhere.
From the 1920s, with production established from the 1940s
A process, not a moment. This happened over a period rather than on a date, and the span is the honest answer.
TeaHQ synthesis. TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.
What happened
After coffee supply became difficult and expensive, the new Turkish republic promoted tea cultivation on the wet Black Sea coast around Rize, where the climate suits it. Production scaled through the mid-century behind protective policy, and consumption grew to among the highest per head in the world.
Why it matters
It is the clearest modern case of a national drinking culture being created by agricultural policy within living memory. The tulip glass, the stacked double pot, the tea garden and the near-constant offering of tea are all twentieth-century, and they are none the less real for that.
Who was involved
The Turkish Republic
stateLegislated and financed tea cultivation as an import-substitution project
Çaykur
institutionThe state tea enterprise established to process and market the crop
What this touches
Producing countries
Culture and history
Compiled from published sources by people who are not historians of this region or period. Where accounts conflict the disagreement is reported rather than settled.