Istanbul’s Tea Men Keep a Centuries-Old Tradition Alive

A steady drizzle pelts the cobblestone streets outside Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar as the iron gates creak open for business. Inside, the air is thick with the tang of tobacco and damp wool. Fluorescent lights illuminate a maze of stalls stacked with hand-woven textiles, copper lamps, and painted ceramics, but it’s the men darting through the narrow aisles, silver trays balanced high with hourglass-shaped glasses of steaming crimson liquid, who catch the eye.

They are the çaycılar, the tea men of Istanbul—a role traditionally held by men, reflecting the Grand Bazaar’s long history and Islamic cultural norms that once limited women’s participation in commerce. Their route through the bazaar is intricate, threading from gold dealers to rug merchants, tailors to spice sellers, delivering glass after glass of tea, collecting empty ones, and circling back to the hidden kitchens where kettles hiss and steam rises in fragrant curls.

No money changes hands. Each tea man carries his own set of markers, small plastic tokens used in place of coins. When the last glass is drained, a token is left beside it. At day’s end, tokens become currency, and the cycle begins again. “Even ordering tea is theatrical in the Grand Bazaar,” says Esin Yasar, a local guide who runs culinary tours through Istanbul’s labyrinthine markets. “You can call it in from one of the phones hanging on the wall, or you just yell the guy’s name—‘Mustafa!’—and show him five fingers for five teas. Or you clink a spoon in a glass, and he knows.”

The entire operation runs on rhythm and trust. Some merchants pay weekly, others monthly, depending on volume. The relationship between tea man and customer is personal, part of the unspoken etiquette that defines daily life here. “You don’t order tea from someone you don’t like,” Yasar explains. “People are emotional. Tea has to come from someone you trust.”

For centuries, coffee defined Turkish hospitality, but it was tea that became the great democratizer. Introduced along the Silk Road, tea didn’t take root until the early 20th century, when coffee grew too expensive. The young Turkish Republic saw potential in the humid hills of Rize, on the country’s northeastern Black Sea coast, and began cultivating tea there in the 1930s and ’40s.

“By the 1950s, tea had become cheaper than coffee,” says Esra Ansel Derinbay, author of The Story of Tea. “We started to see it everywhere; it became a staple, a part of everyday life. It entered the kitchens of every household, part of breakfast and afternoon tea. Whenever people felt tired or joyful, they reached for tea. It even made its way into government offices and workplaces; everyone began drinking tea daily. And of course, you started to see these little spaces—not quite shops, but small rooms—dedicated solely to preparing tea.”

Today, Turkey leads the world in per-capita tea consumption. In places like the Grand Bazaar, the drink is more than refreshment; it’s infrastructure. Hundreds of glasses move through the market each hour, carried with acrobatic precision. Each tea man has his own route, his own loyal shops, his own blend. Some are known for stronger brews made with kaçak çay, or “smuggled tea,” once imported illegally from Iraq and prized for its bitter edge. Others soften the tannins with a splash of bergamot or a few local leaves from Rize—the misty Black Sea region where tea blankets the hillsides and where even the airport nods to the ritual. At Rize-Artvin, the air traffic control tower rises in the shape of a tulip-shaped tea glass, gleaming above the sea on which the airport is built. Inside, a tea museum honors the leaf that built the region’s identity.

“I like blends,” Yasar admits. “Many tea men have their own mixture—a little bit smuggled tea, a little bit Turkish tea. That’s why there are so many different tea men, and people have their favorite. It’s not only the tea, it’s the relationship.”

In the corner kitchens where tea is brewed, the ritual follows the same choreography it has for generations. The çaydanlık, a double teapot, sits atop a burner—the bottom filled with boiling water, the top steeping loose black tea leaves. When the tea is ready, half a glass of the strong brew is poured, then diluted with water to taste. It’s always served in tulip-shaped glasses—never ceramic—so the drinker can admire the color, what Turks call tavşankanı, or “rabbit’s blood.”

“We like to see the color of the tea,” says Yasar. “If it looks cloudy, it’s not fresh. It has to be bright. And we like it hot, really hot. That’s why the glasses are small. You finish before it cools.”

Everywhere in Istanbul, tea is both punctuation and bridge. You sip it while haggling for leather goods, while a barber trims your hair, while your butcher sharpens his knife. It’s the first thing offered to a guest and the last gesture of parting. “Offering tea is hospitality,” Yasar says. “Wherever you go, you’re asked for tea. You go to your butcher to buy meat, and while he’s preparing it, he offers you some. Your green grocer offers you tea. You meet a friend on the street, you say, ‘Let’s have a glass of tea.’ Tea is everything. It’s a very interesting tool to open every door. You see some people fighting and say, ‘Let’s have a glass of tea and talk about this.’”

That simple gesture—an invitation wrapped in steam—anchors a culture of connection. In a city of nearly 16 million people, tea is the equalizer. The same glass that warms a banker’s hands also fuels the apprentice sprinting through the bazaar with a tray balanced high above his head.

As the afternoon wanes, the bazaar hums with its own pulse. The drizzle outside has stopped, but the air remains heavy with spice and smoke. A tea man rounds a corner, his tray lighter now, the clink of empty glasses marking his return toward the kitchen. Merchants lean back in their chairs, watching the crowd thin, sipping the last of their tea, deep crimson against the silver of the tray.

In Istanbul, the tea never really stops flowing. It circulates like the lifeblood of the city—familiar, restorative, endlessly refilled. And as long as there are men to brew it, to carry it, to pass a glass across a counter with a knowing smile, the tradition endures—one pot, one pour, one small act of hospitality at a time.