Tea and sweets of hospitable Azerbaijan

Tea and sweets are served in Azerbaijan for any occasion – whether you’re visiting friends or waiting for a business meeting you will certainly be offered a cup of chai that is usually drunk in a pear-shaped glass, armud, which helps retain heat. Tea is always served after the meal, and asking for a ‘cup’ before eating might stir a bit of controversy! The experience wouldn’t be quite the same without something sweet, so tea is usually accompanied by varenye, a very sweet preserve containing whole fruit. Apart from traditional flavors, such as cherry, fig or strawberry, you will find as well watermelon, olive, tomato or nut. The most popular local sweet is pahlava, a diamond-shaped pastry with layers of nuts, and halva. There are two types of halva in Azerbaijan – one is a moist, liquidy sweet made from butter, sugar and flour while the other is solid and prepared from nuts or sesame seeds.

This is just a tiny sample of what you can expect from Azeri cuisine – there are also 30 types of soups, a wide variety of bread, dumplings, turnovers, meat and vegetable dishes, cheese and more. The country’s cuisine has evolved a lot over the last 100 years due to the Soviet influence and today along the old style traditional Azeri foods you will find Russian stuffed cabbage (dolme kalam), stolichnaya salad (shredded chicken, carrots, potatoes, peas, and mayonnaise), vinaigrette salad or cakes, which are served during birthday celebrations or at parties instead of/along with pahlava.  We hope this little tour of Azerbaijan’s cuisine has aroused some appetite to find out more and you will join us for a journey of discovery of local flavors.


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