Russian Caravan

Where it grows

Inherited from its components A blend of a Chinese black tea with a smoky component, and the two are made separately in different places before they are combined.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Withering — Reduces water content, softens the leaf for later handling, and permits early enzymatic and aromatic development.
2. 2. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
3. 3. Oxidation — Allows polyphenol oxidase to act on leaf polyphenols after cell rupture, converting them into the larger coloured compounds that give oxidised tea its colour and body.
4. 4. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.

The route it is made by

A blend of lots — A blend, and one whose smoky character comes from a smoked component rather than from a step applied to the whole. The lots are made separately and combined afterwards.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

• Withering
  • creates Geraniol
  • creates Linalool
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Theasinensins
  • raises Methyl salicylate
  • raises Nerolidol
  • raises Soluble sugars
  • lowers cis-3-Hexenol
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • lowers Leaf lipids
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Oxidation
  • converts Carotenoids
  • converts Catechins
  • converts ECG (epicatechin gallate)
  • converts EGC (epigallocatechin)
  • converts EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
  • converts Epicatechin
  • converts Linalool
  • creates Beta-damascenone
  • creates Beta-ionone
  • creates GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Tea cream
  • creates Theaflavins
  • creates Thearubigins
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
  • raises Geraniol
  • raises Nerolidol
  • lowers Anthocyanins
  • lowers Theogallin
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

History

Named for the camel caravans that carried Chinese tea overland to Russia, a journey of many months. The smoky character associated with the name is usually attributed to campfire smoke on the route — a story that is repeated everywhere and documented nowhere, and which the blend now reproduces deliberately with Lapsang.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Samovar service

  4–8 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Samovar, Podstakannik (glass holder), Tea glass

  Open in the brew assistant

Vessels this tea suits

Recorded against the tea rather than against a brewing style, because the vessel does not always follow from the method — a whisk needs lateral room whatever the schedule says, and compressed leaf needs a pick before any method applies at all.

• Podstakannik (glass holder) — The holder solves the glass rather than the tea, and belongs to the same service.
• Copper and brass teaware — The service the blend is associated with was carried in copper and brass — samovars, urns and trays.

When the cup goes wrong

Written against black tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 19 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• My chai catches on the pan or boils over — A scorched note runs through the finished drink, or the pan foams over the moment your back is turned.
• My chai is harsh and drying rather than rich — The drink is strong enough but unpleasant with it: a rough, drying grip on the tongue and a flat cooked note, rather than the round sweetness a good chai has.
• My chai tastes of hot spiced milk rather than tea — The drink is pleasant and sweet and the tea is nowhere in it — no colour to speak of, no briskness, and nothing that would tell you tea had been involved.
• My iced tea has gone cloudy — Tea that was clear when hot turns hazy or milky once chilled.
• My iced tea tastes watery once the ice melts — The tea is good for the first mouthful and thin by the bottom of the glass.
• My milk curdles or separates in the tea — Flecks or threads appear when the milk goes in, or the surface breaks into small islands, and the drink looks grainy rather than smooth.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Russian Caravan vs Lapsang Souchong — One is a smoked tea and the other is a blend containing a smoked tea, and the difference matters because the second has no recipe at all. Put the two side by side

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• Russian railway tea and the podstakannik — A glass in an engraved metal holder, a coal-fired boiler at the end of the carriage, and a conductor who sells tea to the compartment — the one place where Russian tea drinking has a fixed, uniform, instantly recognisable form.
• Samovar tea culture — A concentrate-and-dilute system built around a heated urn, shared across Russia, Iran, Turkey, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and organised around prolonged sitting rather than a single cup.

Prepared drinks built on this tea

A drink is a recipe rather than a leaf: the tea above is one ingredient in it, and the method, the additions and the ratios belong to the drink rather than to this page.

• Zavarka (Russian samovar tea) — A strong tea concentrate kept in a small pot on top of a samovar and diluted in the cup with hot water from below. The system solves the same problem as Turkish çay by the same logic, and the two traditions are closely related historically.

Guides covering this tea

• Tea trade routes
• Tea, the caravan and the Trans-Siberian
• Smoked tea: what actually varies between one and another
• Earl Grey, English Breakfast, chai: what a named blend commits a seller to