How to drink tea with jam (yes, jam) in Azerbaijan

If you ever find yourself in Azerbaijan, do at least this one thing:

Drink the tea.

…with jam.

Yes, fruit jam.

Sounds like a typo, doesn’t it?

That’s what I thought too when I saw the menu. My two Latin American friends and I sat down to tea after walking through the Old City and assumed it was a mistranslation; surely they meant we get bread with our tea and jam? After all, it seemed to be a pretty important staple in Azerbaijan, so it wouldn’t have surprised us if bread came with tea too.

That has to be it, we thought. How do you have tea just with jam?

Turns out not only is it as simple as it sounds, but it is also an AMAZING taste experience. I thought I knew teas pretty well by now (having grown up with green teas as a Chinese-American, and then years of drinking English breakfast teas) but I’d never tasted anything like this.

You know how some food tastes completely different when paired with a certain wine or coffee? Just like that.

The tea itself is a simple but strong black tea, served in an armudu, a pear-shaped glass. You have your choice of a variety of jams, all made of fruit and quite thick — like preserves.

The jam is served in a large bowl along with the pot of tea. If sharing with others, you spoon out a little bit of jam for yourself into a smaller glass container. Then you simply put a small spoonful of jam in your mouth, and sip the tea through the jam. 

The preserves transform the flavor of the tea as it hits your taste buds, adding a totally different kind of sweetness than regular sugar cubes. And of course, with all the thick syrup gone with the hot tea, you’ve got yourself a tasty little morself of fruit to chew on after every few sips.

So if you’re ever in Azerbaijan, do yourself a favor and order some jam with your tea. I’d recommend the white cherry.