This is an excellent explanation and demonstration of a Russian samovar. The samovar used is not the most beautiful or traditional, but the information presented is really good. And as a result of watching this film I am now painfully aware that I will never be able to pronounce the word “podstakannik” (подстаканник) correctly. Tomorrow [...]
While I am extremely strict about using only teawares that come from the same culture as the tea I am drinking, I have a soft spot for the misfits, anomalies and enigmas of the world, and also objects that signify an intersection of cultures. The piece of teaware in the accompanying photographs is one of [...]
A few weeks ago I ventured into a grocery that I had passed by hundreds of times in the past without my curiosity the least bit piqued, having previously assumed that it would not have anything of interest on its shelves. But for whatever reason, on this day I decided I needed to investigate, and [...]
In a theater last week I encountered a very poignant example of tea as cultural signifier. First a little background: The film, Katyń, by Andrej Wayda is about the massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers in the Katyń Forest in 1940. In the late stages of World War II both the Nazis and the [...]
