International Tea Day: The ritual with jam in Azerbaijan REPORT BY EURONEWS

To mark International Tea Day, Nadira Tudor, news presenter, has stopped for tea in Azerbaijan, where the simple act of sharing a cup is shaped by long-standing traditions of flavour, rhythm and hospitality.

In Azerbaijan, tea — or chay — arrives before anything else.

It is not treated as a casual refreshment but as an organising principle of social life, setting the tone for conversation, negotiation, mourning and long evening gatherings. To sit down without tea is considered unusual.

It is traditionally served in slender, pear-shaped armudu glasses, designed to retain heat at the base while allowing the rim to cool just enough for drinking. The shape is as functional as it is recognisable, resting easily between the fingers.

Alongside the tea comes jam.

Presented in small bowls, often of crystal, preserves are served whole rather than blended into the drink. Strawberries, apricots, pears and walnuts retain their structure, carefully prepared so the fruit remains intact rather than dissolving into syrup.

The pairing is deliberate: a spoonful of jam is tasted first, followed by a sip of hot tea. Sweetness and bitterness meet in sequence rather than in mixture.

At Kurban Said, a family-run restaurant where some jams are still made at home, owner Sabina Ulukhanova describes a process rooted in patience and inherited practice.

“My dad also likes to do it on his free time,” she said.

She explained that different fruits require different preparation times. “For example olive, from olive it takes more time than you do it from strawberry. So, it's a... Process. It's a very interesting process.”

She added that the work cannot be rushed. “Nowadays we have no time for it and only if you are retired, you can dedicate this time.”

Even strawberry jam, she noted, takes days to complete. “You do it in two steps or three steps... first phase and then you do it another step next time, next day.... it takes three days before you have this result.”

Across the wider region, tea traditions vary but often share a common cultural role. Sugar cubes are commonly used in Iran, pastries accompany tea in Turkey, and fruit preserves are also found in Russian varenye. In Azerbaijan, however, the sequence is distinct: jam is tasted separately before tea, preserving its identity rather than dissolving it into the drink.

Tea itself accompanies nearly every aspect of daily life — meals, business meetings, weddings, funerals and informal visits. The same glass, the same ritual, repeated across generations.

“It's kind of meditation after a long day, after you come home, or you meet each other with your friends at some cafe or tea house, and you have this time for you with tea and jam.”

“You don't need any cake or something extra for you, just tea and jams. And your friends or your family and then everything is fine.”

She described it as a calming ritual, something that brings a sense of reassurance and continuity. “It is just tradition for us… you always get this feeling that everything will be good.”

The preparation of jam itself remains labour-intensive, particularly walnut preserves, which require repeated processing to achieve their characteristic texture and flavour. The visual quality is also central: fruit is kept intact, its form preserved rather than broken down.

Across cultures, tea often signifies hospitality and social order. In Azerbaijan, that symbolism is heightened through a carefully structured pairing in which sweetness is never rushed or diluted, but instead measured, separated and deliberately experienced.

Here, tea and jam are not simply consumables, but a shared cultural rhythm — part of everyday life and, as many describe it, woven into the national identity itself.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov