Local Drinks

1. Çal

   Çal (fermented camel's milk)

   Usage

   Second sense: a product made by souring camel's milk, or by thinning süzme or çekize with water, and drunk sour. Its example offers a guest camel çal on a hot day. "Düýe çaly" is made by pouring fresh camel milk into large jars, stirring in a starter for two or three minutes, adding one and a half to two parts water and letting it ferment covered at 20-25 C for 4-12 hours, and it has a reputation as a medicinal drink for tuberculosis and stomach ailments. It is held to be the best thirst-quencher of the Turkmen summer. Note that an identically spelled çal is a separate word meaning grey, or a greying older person

2. Agaran

   Agaran (the cream that rises on çal)

   Usage

   It is defined as the gatyk that rises to the surface of camel çal. Fresh agaran is stirred into camel-milk çal, chilled and served in bowls, half a litre of agaran to one and a half of çal. During fermentation the casein and fat float up as foam to become agaran, leaving the çal below. The example simply has people eating agaran with bread

3. Süýji agaran

   Süýji agaran (agaran served with sugar)

   Usage

   Method: pour freshly made camel agaran into bowls and scatter sugar over it, or serve the sugar separately, with hot bread alongside - half a cup of sugar to two bowls of agaran. It is the easier version for anyone who finds plain agaran too sour

4. Gök çaý

   Gök çaý (green tea)

   Usage

   Gök çaý is a variety and grade of tea, with "Biz gökçaý içdik", we drank green tea, as its example. It is the everyday drink of Turkmenistan, drunk all day; there is also the proverb "Çaýyň soňy, çilimiň öňi dostuňa", give your friend the last of the tea and the first of the pipe. It comes in a çäýnek and is drunk from a käse

   Grammar Note

   Turkmen gök covers both blue and green. Its senses sit side by side: the deep colour of sky and sea, unripe (of fruit), and greens or vegetables. The same word gives both gök çaý and gök önüm, produce

5. Süýtli gara çaý

   Süýtli gara çaý (black tea with milk)

   Usage

   Method: boil water in an enamelled pot and brew black tea, boil the milk separately, add it to the tea, bring it back to the boil, take it off the heat and add salt and flavourings. The salt is the Central Asian part, and it surprises anyone expecting a sweet milk tea

6. Narpyzly çaý

   Narpyzly çaý (mint tea)

   Usage

   Boiling water is poured over dried mint leaves, which are then brewed in a rinsed-out teapot in equal measure with the tea. Wild or garden mint will do, fresh or dried. It is taken to calm the nerves and to be good for the stomach and the heart

7. Ýandakly çaý

   Ýandakly çaý (camelthorn tea)

   Usage

   Ýandak is a thorny-stemmed plant with small red flowers, used as fodder and fuel - camelthorn. Only the flowering tips are picked, chopped, scalded with boiling water and dried in the shade; at brewing time they are scalded again and mixed with the tea in equal measure. It is taken for stomach, gut and respiratory complaints and to steady blood pressure. Turning a desert plant into a drink is very much of the Karakum

8. Injir ýaprakly çaý

   Injir ýaprakly çaý (fig-leaf tea)

   Usage

   Fig leaves are washed, dried in the shade and added a little at a time to each brew; the benefit is said to show over long use: good for the heart and blood vessels, steadying to blood pressure and helpful to the stomach. Injir is a tree of southern countries bearing sweet fruit, and that fruit

9. Süzmeli çaý

   Süzmeli çaý (a cold drink of strained yogurt in water)

   Usage

   Method: work ready-made süzme smoothly into water that has been boiled and cooled, and serve it cold in bowls, one bowl of süzme to a litre and a half of water. Süzme is a gatyk product with the whey strained off and salt worked in. Despite the name, no tea leaves go into it: it is a cold salted drink for hot weather

10. Kofe

    Kofe (coffee)

    Usage

    It is a newer borrowing, from Russian "кофе", spelled kofe. This is tea country, and outside the cities çaý is often the only option

11. Çäýnek

    Çäýnek (teapot)

    Usage

    This is the vessel, not the drink. It is defined as a porcelain vessel with a handle and a spout for brewing tea. In Turkmenistan tea is ordered by the çäýnek rather than by the cup, and an example sentence has someone bringing two çäýnek of tea. Saying how many people and how many pots is enough

12. Käse

    Käse (the bowl tea is drunk from)

    Usage

    Another vessel. It is defined as a wide-mouthed enamelled bowl used mainly for drinking tea. Çal, agaran and süzmeli çaý are all served "in käse", and the word doubles as the unit for measuring a drink out - half a cup of sugar to two käse of agaran. Note there is also a second sense, a wedge cut from a melon or watermelon, so käse in a market may well mean a slice of melon

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