Persian Tea: Words, Phrases and Etiquette for Drinking Chây Like an Iranian

Tea in Persian is چای (chây), and in everyday speech you will often hear چایی (châyi). Iranians drink strong black tea from small clear glasses called استکان (estekân), brewed slowly in a teapot that sits on a kettle or samovar. It comes with sugar cubes (قند, ghand) or rock candy (نبات, nabât), and a host will ask چای میل دارید؟ (chây meyl dârid?), “Would you like some tea?”

Tea is the first thing offered to a guest in an Iranian home, the drink of every office and bazaar shop, and the reason a “five-minute visit” lasts an hour. This guide gives you the words and phrases you need to take part: the tea set, how strong or weak you want it, how to accept and refuse politely, what Iranians say while pouring and drinking, and a short, careful history. Every word comes with Persian script, pronunciation and a note on when people actually use it, and there is practice along the way.

Tea in Persian: the two words you need first

The standard word is چای (chây) Listen. It is what you see on menus, packets and signs. In conversation, especially in Tehran, many people say چایی (châyi) Listen: “چایی می‌خوری؟” (châyi mikhori?) means “Want some tea?” between friends and family. Both are correct; چایی simply sounds more homey and spoken. You can see the basic word in our vocabulary entry for chây, the Persian word for tea.

Notice that Persian does not need a separate word for “a cup of tea.” You can say یه چایی (ye châyi, spoken) or یک چای (yek chây, written), “a tea,” and everyone understands one glass.

The Persian tea set: vocabulary table

An Iranian tea set looks different from a British or American one. There are no mugs and usually no milk jug. Instead you will find a kettle with a teapot on top, small glasses on saucers, and a bowl of sugar lumps. These are the words you will hear around it.

For more drink names (coffee, juice, water, doogh), see our list of drinks in Persian.

Strong or weak? Describing your tea

Iranian tea is brewed as a concentrate. The host pours some strong tea from the teapot into the glass and then tops it up with hot water from the kettle or samovar. That is why the glasses are clear: the color tells everyone how strong the tea is, and Persian describes strength by color.

To ask for it your way, add لطفاً (lotfan, please): کم‌رنگ، لطفاً (kam-rang, lotfan) Listen “Weak, please,” or, in relaxed speech, پررنگ باشه (por-rang bâshe) Listen “Make it strong.”

An old saying sums up a perfect glass: tea should be لب‌سوز، لب‌دوز، لب‌ریز (lab-suz, lab-duz, lab-riz), “lip-burning, lip-sealing, brimful”: hot enough to almost burn, sweet enough to make your lips sticky, and filled to the top.

Sugar the Iranian way: ghand and nabât

In most of Iran, sugar does not go into the glass. You take a lump of قند (ghand) Listen, dip a corner in your tea if you like, hold it between your teeth and sip the hot tea through it. This is called قندپهلو (ghand-pahlu), “sugar on the side.” Older families still buy irregular lumps chipped from a large sugarloaf because they melt more slowly than factory cubes.

نبات (nabât) Listen is rock candy, sold as clear crystals or on a wooden stick, and often colored gold with saffron as نبات زعفرانی (nabât-e za’farâni). Many Iranians make چای نبات (chây nabât) when someone has a cold, a stomach ache or simply feels low; it is the Iranian equivalent of “let me make you a cup of tea.” Treat it as comfort and tradition, not medicine.

Tea also arrives with something sweet: dates (خرما, khormâ), raisins (کشمش, keshmesh), cookies (شیرینی, shirini, “sweets, pastries”) or regional sweets such as gaz from Isfahan and sohân from Qom.

Flavored and herbal teas Iranians drink

Everyday tea is plain black tea, but many households add a little flavor to the teapot. These are common, and the names are easy to learn because they follow one pattern: چای + the flavor.

How Iranians brew tea (and the words for each step)

The key verb is دم کردن (dam kardan) Listen, “to brew, to steep.” When the tea is ready, people say it has “drawn”: چای دم کشید (chây dam keshid). Here is the method most Iranian homes use, with the Persian you will hear in the kitchen.

1. Boil the water in the کتری (ketri) or سماور (samâvar).
2. Warm the teapot (قوری, ghuri) with a splash of the hot water and pour it out.
3. Add loose black tea: roughly one heaped teaspoon per glass, plus a cardamom pod if you like.
4. Pour boiling water over the leaves and set the teapot on top of the kettle or samovar over very low heat, so the steam keeps it hot without boiling it.
5. Let it steep (دم بکشد, dam bekeshad; spoken دم بکشه, dam bekeshe) for about 10 to 15 minutes. Boiling the tea makes it bitter.
6. Pour (چای ریختن, chây rikhtan): a little concentrate in each estekân, then hot water until the color is right for each person.

When guests arrive, you will often hear الان چای دم می‌کنم (alân chây dam mikonam) Listen, “I’ll put the tea on right now,” or the question چای دم کنم؟ (chây dam konam?), “Shall I make tea?” The answer from a polite guest is usually a gentle protest, which brings us to taarof.

Offering and accepting tea: the phrases

Tea is where most learners meet taarof, the Persian system of ritual politeness, for the first time. The host offers, the guest says not to go to any trouble, the host insists, and the tea arrives anyway. Here is what each side says.

What the host says

What the guest says

Say these aloud: چای میل دارید؟ Listen بفرمایید چای Listen دستتون درد نکنه Listen نوش جان Listen

A short tea dialogue

Here is how a typical exchange sounds in spoken Persian when a guest arrives. For a longer version, try our conversation lesson Coffee or Tea? Offering Drinks.

Tea etiquette in an Iranian home

A few habits will make you a comfortable guest, and help you understand what is going on around you.

• Tea comes first. Within minutes of arriving, a tray of tea appears. It is offered to every guest, at every visit, at almost any time of day.
• Serving order matters. The tray usually goes first to the oldest or most respected person in the room. Wait until it reaches you; there is no need to stand.
• Hold the glass by the rim or use the saucer. An estekân has no handle and gets hot. You may see older people pour a little tea into the نعلبکی (na’lbaki) to cool it and sip from the saucer.
• Refills keep coming. The host watches your glass. If you want to stop, leave a little tea in it or say دیگه میل ندارم (dige meyl nadâram).
• Thank the person who served. Use دستتون درد نکنه even for a single glass; in Persian you thank the hand that did the work.
• Tea after meals. A glass of tea traditionally ends lunch and dinner, and the afternoon snack (عصرانه, asrâne) is built around it.
• Tea in sad times too. At mourning gatherings, plain tea is served with dates and halva. There it is a quiet gesture of care, not a social ritual.

Tea outside the home: teahouses, offices and bazaars

The teahouse: chây-khâne and ghahve-khâne

A traditional teahouse is a چای‌خانه (chây-khâne) Listen, but the older and still very common name is قهوه‌خانه (ghahve-khâne) Listen, literally “coffee house.” Coffee was the main hot drink in Iran before tea took over in the 19th century, and the name stayed even though these places serve tea. In a traditional ghahve-khâne you sit on a تخت (takht), a wide bench covered with a rug, drink tea from estekâns, and often order a stew such as dizi. Some still keep the custom of نقالی (naghâli), professional storytelling of tales from the Shahnameh, and the style of painting on their walls is known as نقاشی قهوه‌خانه‌ای (naghâshi-ye ghahve-khâne’i), “coffeehouse painting.” Ordering is simple: یه قوری چای، لطفاً (ye ghuri chây, lotfan), “a pot of tea, please.”

Modern cafes (کافه, kâfe) in Iranian cities serve espresso as well as tea; if that is where you are headed, see going to a cafe with a friend.

At work and in the bazaar

Offices in Iran traditionally have an آبدارخانه (âbdârkhâne), a small kitchen where tea is made, and many still employ an آبدارچی (âbdârchi), the person who brings tea to desks and meetings. In the bazaar, a shopkeeper may offer you a glass while you look at carpets; you can accept with دستتون درد نکنه without any obligation to buy.

A short history of tea in Iran

Tea reached Iran long before it became popular there. Coffee remained the common hot drink until the first half of the 19th century, during the Qajar era, when tea rapidly took its place. The samovar arrived from Russia in the same period, and the word سماور itself is borrowed from Russian.

For decades Iran imported its tea. That changed around 1900, when Mohammad Mirza Kashef al-Saltaneh, a Persian diplomat who had served in India, brought tea plants back and began cultivation near Lahijan in Gilan province, on the Caspian coast (the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry on tea dates the first planting to 1902). He is often called the father of Iranian tea, and he is buried in Lahijan, where there is also a tea museum. Today Iranian tea is grown in the green, rainy provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran; you can read more about the region in Shomal, northern Iran’s Caspian coast and practice reading about it in Persian Reading: Northern Iran. In shops you will hear چای ایرانی (chây-e irâni, Iranian tea) contrasted with چای خارجی (chây-e khâreji, imported tea), and چای لاهیجان (chây-e lâhijân) is a name every Iranian knows.

Tea idioms and expressions

Something this central to daily life shows up in the language. These expressions are all in active use.

چایی نخورده پسرخاله شد Listen is a favorite; for more sayings like it, see Farsi idioms with no English equivalent.

How to keep learning

Tea vocabulary is a small door into a lot of everyday Persian: the polite verb میل داشتن, the spoken forms می‌خوری and بریزم, and the reflex of thanking with دستتون درد نکنه. To practice typing the words in this post, use our online Persian keyboard, and test yourself on other everyday words with the Persian vocabulary quiz. If you want hundreds more phrases like these, organized by real situations such as visiting a home, eating and shopping, Farsi Conversations is built for exactly that.

Common questions

How do you say tea in Persian?

Tea is چای (chây). In everyday speech many Iranians say چایی (châyi), as in چایی می‌خوری؟ (châyi mikhori?), “Want some tea?” Both mean the same thing; châyi just sounds more spoken.

What is Persian tea made of?

Persian tea is black tea, usually loose leaves, brewed strong in a teapot set over a kettle or samovar and diluted with hot water in the glass. Many families add a cardamom pod, and some add a few saffron threads, a cinnamon stick or dried rosebuds. It is served without milk, with sugar lumps (ghand) or rock candy (nabât) on the side.

Why do Iranians drink tea from glasses?

The clear estekân lets the host and guest see the color of the tea, and color is how Iranians judge strength: por-rang (strong) or kam-rang (weak). The small size also keeps each serving hot, and the host simply pours another.

Is it rude to refuse tea in Iran?

No. You can decline with ممنون، میل ندارم (mamnun, meyl nadâram). Because of taarof, the host will probably offer again once or twice, so repeat your answer kindly. Many guests accept the second offer, since tea is a sign of welcome.

What is chai nabat?

چای نبات (chây nabât) is black tea sweetened with nabât, rock candy that is often flavored with saffron. Iranians commonly make it for someone who has a cold, an upset stomach or just needs comfort.

What is a Persian tea house called?

A قهوه‌خانه (ghahve-khâne, literally “coffee house”) or چای‌خانه (chây-khâne, “tea house”). Traditional ones have rug-covered benches called takht, and some still host naghâli storytelling from the Shahnameh.

Learn Persian with our bestseller

Study with the book

Learn Farsi in 100 Days: The Ultimate Crash Course to Learning Farsi Fast

PDF ebook, instant download. $26.99 Original price was: $26.99.$14.99Current price is: $14.99.

Add to cart See inside

Serious about Persian? Get all 30 of our Persian learning books for $199.99 (55% less than buying them one by one).

Browse all Persian learning books