Turkey Opens a Tea Library in Rize.

By Justin Mays:

Turkey opened its first tea library at Recep Tayyip Erdogan University in Rize. The library is in the Black Sea province of the country and was built to make it easy for those who wish to do research on this hot beverage.

The library has a total of 938 books on tea varieties, growing regions, and the culture of drinking tea collected from Turkey and other parts of the world. The university’s rector, Professor Huseyin karaman said, “We have collected all books written in Turkish on tea and some books in foreign languages. Thanks to the embassies and consulates of different countries who helped us. This process will be continued for perpetual replenishment of our book fund”. Professor Karaman added that the university is holding diplomatic missions in order to get books from other countries since it is hard to do so because of the pandemic.

The library has a combination of academic works such as dissertations, articles, reports, and magazines on tea. H. Karaman highlighted that these kinds of thematic libraries help readers interested in specific topics to save time and enrich their knowledge in particular fields.

Rize province, where the library is located is known as the Tea Capital of Turkey because of its high production of this hot drink and also has a tea museum, under construction. Consumption of tea in Turkey increased in 2021 as people were confined to their homes because of COVID-19.

A total of 275.000 tons of processed tea was consumed in Turkey in 2021 and the consumption per person rose from 3.5 kilograms to 4 kilograms or 1.300 glasses of tea annually.  

The university also has a department with 734 works about the Black Sea.