LIVING with a TURKISH FAMILY at a TEA HOUSE IN ARTVIN
Okay we're officially now in Turkey! We're Marianne and Chris in 2018 we quit the 9-5 and bought Trudy our camper van. We are currently on an adventure to drive the circumference of the World! You join us as we explore the East of Turkey ...... with mystical lands, adventurous train rides, great wild camping spots and interesting characters. Okay we just bought a little bit of shopping in Hopa. I found a place on park4night, that's got really good reviews, so i i'm hoping .....
it's about half an hour on the way to Artvin ... 24 minutes? and we're going to try if we can, to get Trudy a wash because she's very dirty! This is the town of Hopa which is the last town in Turkey before the border of Georgia, or the first one if you're coming back, it is always a little bit chaotic here. Petrol Ofici, lpg and a car wash Where is the LPG? Over there. Okay beautiful, we filled up with lpg, we're going to give Trudy a little bit of a clean, straight in there.
Trudy is in for a good wash and she is literally trashed. Okay 20 minute drive up into the hills. So we've turned off we're heading up the mountain roads 5 minutes to go. More mountains Marianne .... yes but there are roads !! There are roads! So this is the little spot on park4night It may be flatter here? good morning Oh we're back in Turkey, we had a great night sleep here last night.
We're between the town of Hopa on the coast near the border with Georgia, and Artvin and we're up in the Turkish hillside, look we're right in nature here. Actually we've got a very early morning wake-up call that about 4.30 am from the minaret from the mosque that you can see just behind us. But it's beautiful here this morning the mist is just coming over the trees. We found this spot on the park4night app, and it's just a wonderful little tea house literally in the mountains here in Turkey. And it's proper rural life, so we're going to go in have a cup of tea and introduce you to the family where we're staying. There's actually little chickens running around, and this is the wonderful little tea house ..... Good morning!
good morning Wow this is such a cool place, Welcome to my tea company and tea farm. Beautiful! Look at this we've got a wood-fired oven here with some tea brewing on top, and a little kitchen in the corner there this is a perfect cafe. The chickens want a cup of tea this morning as well! Marianne's talking chicken! Marianne talks lots of animal languages, we used to have chickens back home. So let me introduce Yasar, means life - lives.
and his wife Meryem. I love the fact that we're having a cup of coffee with chickens .... Amazing! There is some butter melting ....
Oh potatoes. I will show you the best way to prepare the tea, put the water there is hot water, yeah. First water and then add the tea.
Is this boiling, or not quite? Boiling, after there are bubbles put the tea and then no more bubbles. Oh it's a lot of tea ..... look at that! Then wait 20 minutes, yeah, then the tea will sink down ... Ah it goes down to the bottom? Yes, then ready! When the tea sinks is is cooked? Yes Turkish çay coming! So we melted some butter and we're adding in corn, So this is going to be Muhlama, then we add a bit of water.
Oh then it starts to thicken, so then we've added in the cheese, and it goes really thick, so then it slowly starts melting oh that looks so good! I'm not sure who's entertaining who? wow wow There is no floating tea, it has sunk down now, so it's cooked! Wow look at this, absolutely amazing! Muhlama and we've got some fried potatoes, fresh tea, some olives, some salad, some bread, some kind of sponge and great company! Wonderful company! A family to adopt us for a couple of days! Wow! It's different cheese, and different cheese. The same method, okay. The same method different cheese - yes! Oh okay.
Do you have to roll it? is it .... oh my lord! i'm not very good at this! No you are not a professional cheese roller! Wow, you need some scissors maybe? Oh look at that! That's some really stringy cheese! Don't laugh! It's your turn now Marianne! This is wonderful look at this! Some potatoes, oh so nice! I've let the cheese go a little bit cold so it's like super long and stringy! Look, and the smell coming from this cheese...... is just delicious! How good is that? My friend ...... you are a master!
Oh will you marry me? So this is like..... it's almost like burnt butter with cheese, yes. This cheese is one of their family cheeses, look at that! This is wonderful .... That's really good.... Yhis is high cholesterol, heart attack in a pan! But if you're going to die ... this is the way to go!
After that wonderful breakfast, we've come back into Trudy it's actually started raining. This region of Turkey gets a lot of rain especially in the Autumn, so we're just catching up on some editing, that is the look of our desk .... loads of hard drives and a computer Marianne's on her computer too. Are you feeding the cockerel? I am ... and hopefully it stays bright today, but what a beautiful spot to wake up to here. Come? really? Okay, they're doing the bees and they're saying 'you can come' oh Is the honey ready? is that why you're opening it or are you're just checking ? We are looking for the queen bee, oh you're trying to find the queen bee? Yeah, to find if there are eggs or not - oh oh my lord! This is good, it's a new bee, oh .... it's making new bees!? yes yes this is honey oh yeah, this is honey, this is new Bee.
Wow, How come you're the only one with protective gear? We don't have any, look he has got it from head to foot! So they are trying to find the queen bee, It looks like a hard job! Oh! Ok - I got stung! I got stung! You got stung? Yeah - Where? Awwh Baby ..... It really hurs! That is so mean !! Are you laughing? It stuck its sting in there, and then and then more started coming. And I thought - i'm out of here, and then he started spraying me with smoke! Good morning, so we had another good night's sleep here last night.
The bee sting's looking a little bit angry this morning. The arm has gone a bit red, so i've had an antihistamine and fingers crossed that stays all right, but it's a little bit irritated this morning. we've woken up this morning, It's a little bit brighter, the rain didn't stop yesterday. Now this morning Yasar should be meeting us to show us his secret place, as he calls it! But before he gets here, we've got to fill up with water. And get the van ready for the road, because today we are heading further east in Turkey, as we continue our journey back towards the south, but there's one more important job to do! What? Let the chickens out! And Marianne because she loves chickens, she's taken on the duty of letting the chicks out early morning.
Aah and then there's also babies, which we let out .... we used to have lots of chickens at home, and i used to hatch out our own chicks and grow our flock and i think we got up to about 45, and we used to have all sorts of different chickens, there's a few of these babies running around. We're next to a source of really nice mountain water, which you can't beat, and we haven't filled up Trudy's water tank for a while, because we were coming down those mountain roads we decided not to have the extra weight in the van. So we're going to drain the little bit of water that's left in there and fill it up with some good fresh mountain water before we hit the road later today. There's a little plug in there, isn't there? Yes there is, i'm just giving it a swish around! Because that's always a good thing to do if there's any little bits of residue because bearing in mind we fill up from all sorts of different sources.
Good morning! Good morning !! It's good weather today! So down over here is the water source coming from the mountain, look at that, that is their water source .... beautiful mountain water constantly flowing. We've got our bags to fill up, and how cool is this?! This is actually made out of a log, it's a stick that's tapping water from the waterfall behind the bushes there, for a constant water source. There you go, that's the fastest filling water we've had so far! Okay we're jumping in Yasar's car because we're on a little little adventure! Where are we going? To my tea farm and my secret place! Your secret place.... How exciting ... Okay We're doing a bit of crazy driving, oh my god! He's having fun! Do you want me to get out? Okay, we're getting out, in the bushes oh i'm in the bushes! Did we get stuck? Every time it's difficult yeah, So we've literally just come out of the car and we didn't notice but we are right in a tea plantation ! This is tea seeds, Oh is that what the seeds look like? yeah i've never seen the seeds. Look at that! yes it's like a triangle, plant it in the ground and then .....
more tree babies! yes How many times do you cut the tea? Three times cutting, three three times a year ? Yes You can come with me, and this area is a new tea that we collected, Okay yeah, you can come? yeah we're coming. Let's go! I noticed you put your boots on this morning, it's a good job! We're getting our exercise this morning, this is for new tea, oh okay, you cleared that and you're going to plant tea all on this? yeah Oh there's a lot of chai! I just said to Yasar, that he is planting it on like hillsides like this, why don't you find somewhere flat to plant, and he said you show me somewhere flat !! Do you have any flat land? No flat land here! No flat land! there is no flat land, every traveller asked me why, because we're in the mountains! We're climbing up, we're going to try and cut some tea, that needs cutting. Okay let's try and get up here without falling over! This could be a caught on camera moment, kids don't die for instagram! Oh my gosh Marianne.
Good job well done! Where is the bear, the bear is here! Oh is that bear pooh? Yeah bear ... no way?! Really? Yes there's bear poop, it is a bit stinky! Brown bear, okay yeah are they dangerous? not dangerous, they watch, they watch you ? yeah they watch us. Okay they're watching us yeah somewhere in there, there is a bear nearby watching us! Walking here in the nights, they come here - oh okay.
I've never seen bear pooh! Wow that's the first time i've ever seen bear poop! So Marianne's going to cut the tea, don't fall over Marianne it's a long way down! I think he invited Marianne because her labour is free of charge. My father comes from Hoppa, my fathers live here, this is high mountains, there is no tea - yes, and then my mother idea is put to grow tea here, and this begun 16 years ago. My mother live here before, here maybe There is no houses, there is no street, it's very beautiful yes.
I found a tea flower how special is that? Okay coming down to a little bit trickier If you fall - go on your bum! Like that! Did you just fall over? Are you okay? Yes - I landed on my bum! That's good Okay you're down! You're down, you're good! Okay let's go, so we're walking down the hill, just so that the car's a little bit lighter, because it's stuck in the mud a bit. Here he comes, reversing all the way down. Ten minute drive and we've come to the secret place! We've parked up and we're just walking down now. This is the secret place that he wants to show us! Is that bear pooh? No that is cow poo Marianne, that's definitely a cow pooh look at the size of that! What are you doing Marianne? oh my lord! So we're coming down to the river, I can hear a little stream down here. Wow, look at this! We've arrived at a little bit of a magical waterfall ..... That's amazing! We've come down to this little secret spot, look at this waterfall! That is stunning the way it's coming over the top there that's amazing! If you're anywhere near the Georgian / Turkish border and anywhere near Hoppa? In fact make a trip come and see Yasar, have the best tea in town! And he will show you the secret place ! Absolutely ...
Okay so we've come about 5 minutes further up the mountain here, look at this view! That is a big drop for those of you that are scared of heights ... that is a huge drop! It's jungle terrain, yeah look at that there's a waterfall going down there. And this is Hoppa right? in the distance? Hoppa you can see, the city of Hoppa and the Black sea, and you can see many tea farms, yes lots of tea! Oh there's a waterfall, yes there's a waterfall and over the edge, there's a very big drop! And we'll see you in March .... bye coffee's spilling everywhere Okay so after that wonderful time, we are heading East and we'll just see where we end up.
We've got probably a few hours driving, all good there's a little bit of banging in the back, but i think we're good! What a lovely, lovely family ! if you do come to this region you should definitely pop in and say hi! You will have a wonderful time, absolutely wonderful time! Right East we go!
2021-11-19 02:34
