On the third Saturday of May, residents of Kalmykia celebrate a state memorable date – Kalmyk tea day (Kalm. Halmg Tsiaagin nyar). This annual holiday was established by the people’s Khural (parliament) of Kalmykia in 2011 in order to preserve and revive the national culture. It first took place in 2012.
Interestingly, Kalmyk tea is more like a first course than a drink. Correctly brewing and serving tea is an art. As a rule, well-brewed Kalmyk tea is generously salted, milk and nutmeg crushed in butter are added to it, and all this is thoroughly stirred with a ladle.
The traditional Kalmyk tea ceremony also has its own rules. For example, you cannot serve stale tea to a guest – this is a manifestation of disrespect, so the drink is brewed right in the presence of the guest. In this case, all movements are made from left to right – in the direction of the sun. The first portion of tea is served to Burkhans (Buddhas): they pour it into a sacrificial cup and put it on the altar, and after the end of the tea party they give it to the children.
You cannot drink tea from bowls with chipped edges. When offering tea, the host should hold the bowl with both hands at chest level, thereby showing respect for the guest. When offering tea, a hierarchy is observed: first, the bowl is served to the eldest, regardless of whether he is a guest, a relative, or someone else. The person receiving the tea, in turn, must take the bowl with both hands, perform the sprinkling ritual (“tsatsl tsatskh”) with the ring finger of the right hand, pronounce a good wish to the tea itself, the owner of the house and his entire family. After the tea is drunk, empty dishes should not be turned upside down – this is regarded as a curse.
It is considered a lucky omen to visit for morning tea. The Kalmyks associate with him a successful solution of the started cases, confirming this with a proverb, which, translated from Kalmyk, reads: “If you drink tea in the morning, things will come true”.
There are several versions of how the Kalmyks learned about tea. According to one of them, the famous religious reformer Zongkhava once fell ill and turned to a doctor. He prescribed him a “divine drink”, advising him to drink it on an empty stomach for seven days in a row. Tsongkhava heeded the advice and was healed. On this occasion, he called on all believers to set up a lamp for the Burkhans and prepare a miraculous drink, later called by the Kalmyks “khalmg tse”. This was tea.
According to another version, the custom of drinking tea was presented to the Kalmyks by a lama who decided to find plant foods that would not be inferior in calorie content to meat dishes. He read a prayer for 30 days in the hope that a miraculous culture would rise, and his expectations were justified. Since then, the Kalmyks have developed the custom of holding the tea ceremony as a kind of divine ritual, and tea itself has become the most revered Kalmyk drink: morning begins in Kalmyk families with it, no holiday is complete without it.