Çay: Kurdish Tea and the Soul of the Çayxane

Dala Sarkis
May 29
5 min read

Çay: Kurdish Tea and the Soul of the Çayxane

Çay — tea — is, after water, the most cherished drink in Kurdistan. Strong, dark, and usually very sweet, it is poured all day long from a stacked pair of pots into the little belly-shaped glass called an istikan, offered to every guest, drunk at every gathering, and brewed even at the front lines. To arrive at a Kurdish home or office is to be handed a glass of çay almost before you have sat down; to refuse it is nearly impossible. It is the liquid form of Kurdish hospitality. Yet the honest history is surprising: Kurdish tea culture is barely more than a century old. Tea was introduced to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq around 1895, when a trader brought dried leaves from Iran to Sulaymani; at first only wealthy families could afford to serve it to guests in their diwans. Within a few decades it had swept every class and become the national drink in all but name. This series does not claim tea as a Kurdish invention — it is grown in India and Sri Lanka and drunk across the world. What is unmistakably Kurdish is what the Kurds built around it: the çayxane, the teahouse, which became one of the most important public institutions in modern Kurdish life. This is the ninety-eighth article in the series. A history site has every reason to dwell on çay, because the Kurdish teahouse was never only about tea. It was a forum, a parliament without walls, a stage for storytellers and a refuge for poets and revolutionaries — a glass of sweet tea the price of admission to the conversation of a people.

Key Takeaways

• Strong sweet black tea (çay), served in a small belly-shaped glass called an istikan

• Tea reached Kurdistan only around 1895 — yet quickly became the drink “second only to water”

• The çayxane (teahouse) became a Kurdish civic forum — a salon for poets, politics, and storytelling

• Offering çay is the core gesture of Kurdish hospitality — not Kurdish in origin, but Kurdish in meaning

Quick Facts

Kurdish Name: Çay / cha (tea); çayxane / chaikhana (teahouse)

Served in: The istikan (small belly-shaped glass) and pyala cups; with sugar cubes (klo)

Arrived: c. 1895 in Sulaymani, via a trader from Iran

Heart of it: The çayxane — historic teahouses like Erbil’s Machko (est. 1940)

How the Tea Is Made

Kurdish tea is made by the stacked-pot method, a cousin of the samovar. A small pot holds a strong, concentrated brew — good black leaves brought to the boil in cold water and left to steep — and it sits atop a larger pot of simmering water. To serve, a little of the dark concentrate is poured into the istikan and topped up with hot water, so each drinker can have it exactly to their strength: strong for some, paler for others. Cardamom is often added to the pot to lend its warm, sweet aroma, and in some homes a few mint leaves. The tea is taken with sugar — frequently a great deal of it — sometimes as cubes set beside the glass, sometimes as homemade caramelised sugar (klo) studded with sesame or walnut. The istikan itself matters: a thin, waisted little glass, often gold-rimmed, that shows off the deep red of a good brew and holds just enough for a few hot, sweet mouthfuls before the next is poured. Over a fire on a mountain picnic, with woodsmoke folded into the steam, the same simple method produces what many call the best tea of their lives.

The Teahouse as a Kurdish Forum

If tea is the drink, the çayxane is the institution — and it is the çayxane that makes this a Kurdish story rather than a global one. Once tea took hold in the early twentieth century, public teahouses spread through every Kurdish city; in Erbil, it was said, each quarter had its own. They became the gathering place where Kurdish men drank glass after glass of sweet tea and, between sips, did the real business of a society: arguing politics, trading news, playing dominoes, reciting poetry. Farmers and labourers, poets and politicians, leftists and nationalists all found a seat and a cup in the same room. Historians compare the çayxane to the European coffeehouse — an informal salon, a public sphere — but with a particularly Kurdish charge, because for a stateless people forbidden their language and politics at various times, the teahouse was one of the few places the national conversation could actually happen. Erbil’s Machko Chai Khana, opened in 1940 on the ancient Citadel, drew storytellers and singers and later the photographs of prominent Kurdish intellectuals now lining its walls; its regulars speak of it as a relic of “Kurdistan’s golden age of culture.” The teahouse was, as one study puts it, a silent witness to landmark moments in the region’s political history. It was traditionally a male space — women have long drunk their tea together at home — and today the old çayxane is losing ground to modern cafes. But its meaning endures: in Kurdistan, to pour tea is to open a conversation, and the teahouse turned that gesture into a civic life.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Kurdish tea served?

Kurdish tea (çay) is strong black tea served hot in a small, belly-shaped glass called an istikan, usually with plenty of sugar. It is brewed using two stacked pots — a concentrated brew on top and hot water below — so each glass can be diluted to the drinker’s preferred strength. Cardamom is often added for aroma. It is offered constantly to guests as the central gesture of hospitality.

What is a çayxane?

A çayxane (also chaikhana) is a traditional Kurdish teahouse — a public space where, historically, men gathered to drink tea, discuss news and politics, play games, and listen to storytellers and poets. More than a cafe, it served as an informal civic forum and political salon, comparable to the European coffeehouse, and played a real role in Kurdish cultural and political life. Erbil’s Machko Chai Khana, opened in 1940, is among the most famous.

Is tea originally Kurdish?

No — and this series does not claim it is. Tea is grown elsewhere and drunk across the world, and it only reached the Kurdistan Region around 1895, brought from Iran to Sulaymani. What is distinctively Kurdish is the culture built around it in barely a century: the constant hospitality of çay, the istikan and homemade sugar, and above all the çayxane as a civic and cultural institution. Tea became Kurdish in meaning, if not in origin.

Conclusion

Çay is the ninety-eighth article in this series, and a useful reminder that a food culture is not only about ancient origins. Tea came late to Kurdistan — a single trader’s sack of leaves in 1895 — and within a lifetime it had become the drink of every home, every welcome, every front line, poured endlessly from stacked pots into little gold-rimmed glasses. More than that, it built the çayxane, the teahouse that served a stateless people as parliament, library, and stage. This series does not pretend the Kurds invented tea. It insists on something subtler and truer: that what a people does with a borrowed thing can be wholly its own. Ninety-eight articles in, çay stands for Kurdish hospitality and the Kurdish public square — proof that a glass of sweet tea, offered without fail, can hold a whole society together.