The tea house

To me, the most exciting thing about the Persian tea culture is the tea house or chai khaneh. Of course, these were originally khaveh khaneh, coffee houses, but they happily switched brew when public tastes changed. In the tea-house you can see a huge and varied slice of Persian life and legend, for it is there that traditionally men would gather to meet, smoke, drink tea, and listen to a bard recite the tales of old – usually from the Shahnameh, or ‘Book of Kings’. This book was originally ‘written’ by Ferdowsi in the twelfth century ad, but in truth it is a collection of Persian legends which have been around since the dawn of time, and which, until Ferdowsi’s monumental work, were transmitted orally. Although the practice is less widespread now, there are still chai khanehs in two or three of the larger Iranian cities – Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz – where recitals still take place.