Russian ceremonies. #2. History of Russian tea: Mongol

They don't know if Russian merchants and travellers to Eastern countries knew how to drink tea during the Tatar yoke or not. However the official history of the tea leaves in Russia starts on the 5th of September 1638 at Tomsk, the centre of colonisation of Siberia.

A boyar son from Tomsk Vassiliy Starkov with his merchants and retinue went to visit Mongol Tsar Khan Alyn as representative of the Russian Tsar Mikhail Fedorovitch Romanoff with rich presents. The Mongol was supposed to reverse. The point was that the Khan wearing the great name of the Chingizid who had owned the territory from Crimea till China, at the moment reined in a small kingdom of modern Western Mongolia, Tuva, Khakassia and Altai. So the choice of presents for Russians who preferred fur and silk provoked some difficulties. Altyn-Khan found out a solution and sent to Mikhail Fedorovitch 200 packs of Chinese paper with an unknown herb inside. Adopted by Tatars from Chinese, tea leaves became an important ingredient of the heavy meat-and-milk cuisine of the nomads, but was unusual for Russians who used to make drinks of local herbs and honey, as well as bread and berries. It was not so easy for Mongols to convince Vassiliy Starkov that these 4 poods (about 78 kg) of herbs can replace 100 sables, however the precious goods came to Moscow together with other gifts next year 1639, and step by step became a popular medical drink. The archives prove that the son of Mikhail Fedorovitch, Alexey Romanoff in 1665 treated his colds with Chinese tea, and at the end of XVII century they sold it in the drugstores. Since 1689 regular trading relationships between Moscow and Beijing established and by the rein of Peter the Great Russia imported about 48 tones of tea per year. The main tea-stock centre was at Kyakhta, a city at the border of Mongolia and Buryatia - in 1854 there were 58 Russian merchants trading houses with revenue of 10 mln silver rubles. By 1903 camel caravans of Chinese goods used to import 5000 tones of tea.