The best tea products of the old Soviet state standard.

Tea "The Same with an Elephant" GOST 1938, Indian, black long leaf, small-leaved, first grade, net weight 100 g.

Produced by: Moscow Tea Factory.

67.00

Due to the wholesale price, the minimum order is: 1 box (70 pieces of 100 gr.)

This unpretentiously packaged, inexpensive GOST black tea of ​​decent quality is the favorite tea of ​​the administration of the Special Store site. We recommend it to everyone. Please contact the contact number for details.

Article "GOST tea products in the USSR and Russian Federation".

Short story tea

The history of tea has many centuries, according to legend - even millennia. According to Chinese legend, tea was discovered by the legendary Shen Nung almost twenty-eight centuries before the birth of Christ. It was in China that tea began to be used first as a medicine, and then as a drink. In those days, making tea was complex process- most often it was sold in briquettes, which were then pounded in a mortar; later, powdered tea came into fashion, which was whipped with a whisk with some water. The tea ceremony became a tradition lost in the thirteenth century due to the invasion of the Mongols. Subsequently, tea culture was revived, somewhat modified - now tea leaves were brewed in hot water. It was with this option that the Europeans met. But in the nineteenth century, China began to lose ground in the export of tea - this was facilitated by the wars and revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, giving way to India. Only now China has begun to approach the first place in the export of tea again.

History of the Moscow Tea Factory

In the second half of the nineteenth century, tea consumption in Russia increased so much that the trading house "Vogau and Co" decides to expand the scope of its interests in Russia. In 1962, the trading house concludes an agreement for the supply of tea to Russia. Exactly thirty-one years later, a factory was created in Moscow under the control of a joint-stock company controlled by Vogau and Co. In subsequent years, the trading house managed to make a fortune selling tea, but curtailed activities with Russia's entry into the First World War - more than half of the board members are Germans. The tea factory was soon renamed the "Moscow tea-packing factory named after V. I. Lenin" and in 1939 received the challenge Red Banner. "The same tea with an elephant" was already produced in 1934. A pack of this tea, along with "Ceylon tea" and, most often, "Tea No. 36" could be seen on any table, but the first grade "with an elephant" was highest quality and it was usually reserved for holidays and special days. He relied on state and party officials in food packages.

Is it possible to buy GOST tea today?

Today GOST black tea in most cases is a blend - that is, a mixture of twenty to thirty varieties of tea. This ensures the stability of taste and aroma, since tea of ​​the same variety and different years can vary greatly. In general, Indian tea has a richer taste and less strong aroma than Chinese tea. The process of turning tea leaves into what we usually see involves several stages. This is withering, that is, treatment with warm air for eight hours; then twisting to make the tea leaf release juice; then fermentation, when the leaf is simply exposed to oxygen in the air, which gives it the taste, color and aroma characteristic of ready-made tea (in the USSR, this was most often replaced with additional heat treatment). And only then the tea is dried, sorted and packaged. By the way, if you didn't know green tea made from the same leaves of the same varieties - only green tea is not subjected to withering and fermentation. According to this recipe, GOST black tea has been prepared since 1933 with virtually no changes.

- Where's your tea?

- To the left, a whole department. You'll see right away.

It's easy to say. Looking into a large supermarket in Delhi, I rummaged through several shelves before I came across loose-leaf black tea familiar from childhood. No wonder - after all, the culture of tea drinking in India is different from what we are used to. Soluble (!) Is popular - yes, like coffee - tea, which is poured with boiling water, as well as the "granular version" - leaves twisted into solid balls. "Normal" tea in our understanding in India is not easy to find. In the mornings, they drink masala tea from glass glasses - tea leaves with milk (the harmful influence of the British colonialists) and masala spices containing pepper and spices. You swallow such “happiness”, and your tongue burns - so sharply. But that's okay. In the state of Himachal Pradesh, where many Tibetans live, they prefer tea with yak butter and ... dried chicken. Both a drink and breakfast at the same time. Some tribes (in particular, the Gurkhas) do not brew anything at all, but simply chew tea leaves with ... garlic. In general, the naive idea of ​​India as a tea country is crumbling from the very first days of your stay.

Only female fingers

“Extensive tea plantations in India appeared only in 1856 - English planters brought seedlings from China,” explains one of the tea businessmen. Abdul-Wahid Jamarati. - Before that, only wild varieties grew here. Now tea is grown in three mountainous regions. In the northeast of India - in Darjeeling and the state of Assam, as well as in the south - Nilgiri tea is produced there. The taste requires cool weather and frequent rains: the leaves love to absorb moisture. The most fragrant tea is picked only by hand and only by women (their salary is about 5 thousand rubles a month in Russian money. - Auth.): men's fingers are rougher and cannot pinch off the youngest sprouts - flushes. During machine harvesting, everything is cut off in a row, so these varieties are cheap: experts cynically call them a broom. Personally, I am an ardent fan of tea, which is harvested in Darjeeling between February and May, it has a very bright and rich taste. By the way, never buy tea in the markets, where it is poured into open bags and kept outdoors all day. At such a leaf, the aroma disappears: it turns into chopped hay. I was in Russia and saw - you store the leaves incorrectly. Tea should be put in the refrigerator, at a temperature of + 8 °, so it concentrates its qualities. Do not keep in a paper box, best option- an ordinary glass jar.

The most fragrant tea is collected only by hand and only by women. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

The plantations of Darjeeling are fascinating - huge mountains covered with greenery of tea bushes. My guide, 28-year-old Lakshmi from Tamil Nadu, assures me that she is satisfied with the position: “It’s not coal at a damn depth in a mine to mine.” She considers herself a tea professional, as she is able to collect 80 kg (!) of a leaf per day. The machine, by the way, collects 1.5 tons, but it is very small: we subsequently drink this dust, brewing tea bags. Rubbing the delicate leaves of a tea bush with her fingers, Lakshmi reports: they grow back in two weeks, and in a year one plant can accumulate 70 kg of tea (2.5 times more in Assam). True, now some site owners are planting artificially bred varieties - the taste is not a fountain, but they will cut 100 kilos in six months. Alas, there are enough various frauds with tea in India.

For example, empty jars and packs with the inscription “Elite” or “Choice” are freely sold in the surrounding shops, and unscrupulous traders pour penny varieties into them: after all, only highly experienced tasters abroad can determine the quality of tea.

What's in the brew?

"Unfortunately, good tea small firms often do bodywork, they tell me on the plantation. “They throw in cheap versions of Kenyan or Malaysian, put the stamp “Made in India” and the pack goes to the international market.” How much counterfeit tea is sold in Russia, they could not estimate in Darjeeling. The British (and in Britain they love Indian tea no less than we do) carefully monitor the quality and strictly check the suppliers. Do they do it for us?

“Frankly, even the tea that the USSR bought could hardly be called Indian,” says businessman Vijay Sharma, whose firm sold tea to the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. - It was a blend, a mixture. Depending on the variety in the famous Soviet times In a pack with an image of an elephant, the share of tea from India was only 15-25%. The main filler (more than 50%) was Georgian leaf. And right now, things aren't going well. I tried tea from sellers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, it turned out that they have no idea what period the collection (taste depends on) of Darjeeling. And what's more - Nilgiri tea is often sold as "elite" tea, although in India it is the cheapest, a drink for the poor, it is it that is packaged in bags. In places, Indonesian or Vietnamese tea was sold under the guise of Indian tea.

Cup of red pepper

I order tea from a street cafe in Delhi. It is usually cooked in an iron kettle (or even a saucepan) over an open fire. The leaves are sometimes boiled immediately in milk (at the request of the client) or in water, after adding cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and chili pepper. In general, from the outside it looks like cooking soup. A glass costs 15 rupees (13.5 rubles). The taste is something strange, and almost ten tablespoons of sugar are poured in: in India they love extremely sweet tea. I ask you to brew black Assam leaves without milk and spices. The waiter appears with a glass of steaming tea and ... puts a jug of milk next to him. "Why?! I asked…” “Sir,” his voice sounds with obvious pity. “But you won’t taste good!”

Summing up, I will say: deliveries of Indian tea to our country are still chaotic, sellers have little understanding of varieties or frankly fantasize, pushing low-quality tea leaves from other countries to the Russian consumer. I am generally silent about the price - in India, tea costs 130 rubles. per kilo, we can sell it for a thousand. It's a pity. Indian varieties, especially Darjeeling, are great, and with India our business has long needed to work directly, and not buy tea at exorbitant prices through Europe and dubious small firms in India. So for us it will be cheaper and, most importantly, tastier.

Everyone whose childhood fell on the time of the existence of the USSR undoubtedly remembers Indian tea with an elephant. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this tea disappeared from sight for a long time, but later began to appear, along with other "nostalgic" products of that period.

After a long break, I first saw him in GUM at Gastronome No1, where I often look for my favorite pistachio tartlet with raspberries and strawberries.

The familiar yellow pack with an elephant immediately caught my eye, but upon closer examination, doubts arose because "those same" packs were of course made from cheaper cardboard, and as far as I remembered, the elephant was not red, but gray (or blue) . By the way, there were two types of packaging on sale: square, smaller and rectangular, larger. The price, respectively, also differed 75 kopecks and 95 kopecks.

This tea was in short supply and just like that, it didn’t lie on the shelves in every store. Perhaps this is why it seemed so tasty, against the background of absolutely ugly teas "from a broom" and "hay", which were sold more freely and, of course, were inferior to it in taste. But I think that for us today, that tea from childhood would no longer seem so ideal. After all, we have the opportunity to buy really good tea.

But of course I bought a pack. Paid about 90 rubles, I think. In other places, it may be sold cheaper, but I met him in GUM.

I really like the packaging design. There is something attractive and familiar in it. The same longing for childhood, perhaps. I even like the very presence of this pack in my kitchen. You open the locker, and there is a familiar pack of tea with an elephant....

But I was haunted by the memory that the elephant in my childhood was gray (blue). I got on the Internet and realized that I was not mistaken. I already wanted to express my “phi” to the manufacturer, but when I looked at their website, I realized that with today's variety of teas, they simply could not produce only one type of tea, so they already have 5 elephants of different colors:

Red, blue, gray is Indian tea; as well as purple and brown are complex - this is Ceylon tea.

There are also picketed tea and tea in soft packs. Neither one nor the other interested me because they simply did not exist in my childhood. And the main motivator for the purchase was precisely the nostalgic moment.

The packaging is simply sealed, inside the tea is additionally packed in parchment. Now, this is somehow unusual, because most teas are packaged additionally in foil paper or something shiny. And here it is pleasantly rustling parchment paper, which, by the way, is not glued in any way. You just need to unfold it and you can get to the tea.

Tea looks very ordinary, no frills. The tea leaves are black, medium in size, closer to small ones. Extraneous inclusions, debris and sticks, I did not find. Tea aroma, but not strong.

There is a brewing method on the package, but everyone already knows what’s what and everyone doesn’t care, I think, they do it in their own way. I brewed in a spoon with a mesh, as well as in a BODUM glass teapot.

Tea is brewed much faster than indicated, but for a brighter taste, it is better to let it brew a little though. Otherwise, only the color will turn out, not the taste.

Well, the tea is brewed and you can try it. Of course, I was waiting for some kind of explosion of memories, but it did not follow. Tea is like tea. Nothing special. My attitude towards him is completely neutral. Its color, aroma and taste are not bad, but do not cause me any special enthusiasm. The taste is slightly tart, moderately saturated, the aroma is ordinary tea. The tea is not bad, but if it were not for the box, I would not have singled it out and would not remember it.

Conclusion:
Indian tea The one is not bad and I can recommend it, but I have no enthusiasm. Ordinary tea in an interesting, nostalgic box. I want to try all the other elephants produced by this company, suddenly the very one lurks in one of them ...

Many people still remember the famous tea “with an elephant” with nostalgia, assuring that it was much tastier than modern tea.

Among the product symbols of the USSR, Indian tea "with an elephant" has a special place. It was so popular that boxes with a similar design can still be found today. But how tasty and “real” it was is a moot point.

tea country

The inhabitants of many countries could only envy the Soviet tea plantations, which were a legacy of the tsarist regime. And the pre-revolutionary stocks of tea were so great that in the first years of the existence of the young Country of Soviets, the army and many workers were supplied with tea for free, there was no talk of any purchases abroad. By the 70s, tea plantations covered an area of ​​​​100 thousand hectares, and about 80 enterprises were engaged in its production.

Georgian, Azerbaijani and Krasnodar teas were exported to friendly countries of Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria. Mongolia and other Asian countries were supplied with tile and brick tea. Weighty tiles made of pressed tea "shavings" were decorated with relief inscriptions "USSR", the names of the republic and the factory, as well as images of a sickle and a hammer.

They also drank it in the Union, especially in the Asian republics. Hammered sickle tea had no aroma and was the most tasteless - which is not surprising, because it was made from leftovers. For example, brick tea was made from the oldest leaves and even branches. It was pressed so tightly that it was impossible to break it - they stratified it with a knife.

However, other types of Soviet tea did not differ in particular richness of taste and aroma. But the unspoiled citizens did not know anything else, cheap Chinese was imported into the country in small quantities, but the taste of “real” tea (including Georgian, which had nothing to do with that sold in stores) was known only to diplomats and other elites.

The ambitions of the USSR in this area were so great that in the late 60s, at the government level, the option of converting most of the farmland in the southern regions of the country to tea was considered. However, for some reason, the idea was hacked to death, but they began to actively introduce machine-picking, which made the quality of tea even worse.

The same elephant

“Firewood”, “hay”, “sawdust”, “broom” - as soon as they did not call Georgian or Krasnodar tea (they were most often found in stores, they were also drunk in canteens). Interestingly, many experts disparagingly call machine-picked tea "broom" - too many branches and impurities get into it.

If teas of the highest and first grade were still nothing, then tea of ​​the second grade consisted of about half of the tea "dust" and pieces of branches. Some claimed that it smelled of tobacco - in the absence of the latter, it was sometimes used for rolling cigarettes. But convicts adored second-class tea - it was cheaper, chifir was made from it, the more tea caffeine - the better, well, and the taste and aroma were not at all important.

In the late 70s, against the backdrop of worsening relations with a recent friend - China - active purchases of tea in India began. And in the early 70s, the famous elephant tea began to appear on store shelves. Indian, Madagascar and Ceylon teas have been purchased before, but in small quantities. And the elephant that glorified this drink throughout the country has not yet been observed - the design was developed only in 1967.

Tea was packaged at Soviet factories (the most famous was the Lenin Moscow tea-packing factory) in recognizable cardboard boxes with the image of an elephant - depending on the design, it was of different colors, with the trunk up or down, going right or left, with or without a driver on the back . By all these signs, citizens tried to determine which box contents would be tastier. There was an opinion that the most delicious is where the elephant is against the backdrop of some Indian temple. Though taste qualities tea premium(it was usually decorated with an elephant with a green head) and the first (the head of the animal was blue) did not differ much.

Don't believe your eyes

A 125-gram pack of premium Indian tea cost 95 kopecks, despite the fact that the average salary in the early 70s in the national economy was about 130 rubles. In many cities, “real Indian tea” was in short supply - when it was “thrown out” for sale, queues immediately lined up. They also appreciated him in the zones - the authorities chifir only the “elephant”. The main catch was that, despite the inscription "Indian", there was nothing really Indian tea in the contents.

talking modern language, it was a bath. So, "Indian tea of ​​the first grade" was a mixture of 5% Ceylon tea, 15% Indian, 25% Madagascar and 55% Georgian. All this was regulated by GOSTs and TUs. The composition was not indicated on the packs - only knowledgeable people knew how much Georgian and other things were in the mixture. So the majority of the inhabitants of the Land of the Soviets failed to recognize the taste of real Indian tea.

By the way: Many Soviet housewives, accustomed to the fact that tea is full of garbage, removed white “sticks” from tea “with an elephant”, which were actually tea buds. And thus deprived the drink of a significant part of the taste.

As a businessman, whose company supplied tea to the USSR in the late 70s, later said, in the famous packs with an elephant of Indian tea there were from 5 to 15% - no more.

In the 80s, when store shelves began to empty, tea with an elephant became a terrible shortage. And Indian tea in beautiful tins turned into a valuable gift (as it is now clear, it was also a blend). With the collapse of the USSR, Turkish fakes began to appear in stores - in these packs, outwardly very similar, there was no trace of Indian tea. The counterfeiting business, alas, is still thriving today - as experts say, even in India itself, tea sold as elite tea is often replaced with bad or cheaper tea, for example, Indonesian or Vietnamese, before being sold.

Today, many people do not even know what a deficit is. But literally thirty years ago in the USSR, people stood in line for hours to buy products, the assortment of which left much to be desired. This is exactly what our country was like in the seventies and eighties of the last century. It was at that time that the Soviet people for the first time could feel the taste of Indian tea. Today we will tell you all about black tea "with an elephant", which was considered one of the best products bygone era.

Own tea industry

Initially, there was only domestic Georgian tea in the USSR. It was a real breakthrough in the industrial industry, and the drink was even exported to other countries, where it became popular. That is why the authorities decided to expand production and switched from manual work to machine work, which caused a loss of its former quality, since mechanisms, unlike people, could not distinguish good tea leaves from bad ones. In the seventies, the tea industry in the USSR fell, the state suffered losses and began to decide what to do with it.

The appearance on the shelves of tea "with an elephant"

Many people who lived through the times of the USSR sadly recall those times when "the grass was greener, and the sky was cleaner," and the products were of the highest quality, in comparison with them, even imported ones were useless. But many did not even suspect at that time that they drank tea collected not on the territory of their beloved Motherland, but far beyond its borders.

It so happened that it fell into disrepair, so the USSR entered into an agreement for the supply of tea with countries such as Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, India and Vietnam. With its previous importer, China, which could also supply tea, our state quarreled and therefore did not use its services. So, in order not to lose face in front of their citizens, factories began to pass off imported tea as domestic, bad Georgian leaves were added to it so that they would not be wasted. Since tea came in bulk in loose form, it was easy to do this, without loss. Initially, this scam went well, but still the "domestic" tea was replaced by the same Indian tea "with an elephant". The citizens really loved him.

The history of the creation of tea "with an elephant"

How did tea "with an elephant" appear on the shelves of domestic stores? The development of the recipe, according to some sources, belongs to the Irkutsk tea-packing factory, according to others, to the Moscow tea factory. But this is not so important now, and even then few people asked this question. The main thing is that the recipe was so successful that the tea "with an elephant" was really distinguishable from all other drinks. This tea was distinguished not only by its bright and strong taste, but also by the packaging, which was specially developed in 1967, and Indian tea "with an elephant" went on sale in 1972.

Tea composition

But then again, that was not real Indian tea, but a blend (mixture). This tea included varieties of Georgian, Madagascar, and Ceylon leaves.

Tea "with an elephant" was divided into the highest and first grade, their composition was significantly different. The package of the first grade contained only 15% of tea from India, 5% from Ceylon, 25% from Madagascar, and as much as 55% of leaves from Georgia.

That's why it was the highest, and therefore there was one third of real Indian tea in it, and two thirds belonged to Georgian.

Each of the varieties adhered to the requirements of GOST and TU, only the highest grade Darjeeling was added to Indian tea. This tea was produced in the factories of Moscow, Irkutsk, Ryazan, Ufa, Odessa. Each production had its own tasters, whose duties included compiling the necessary mixture of purchased varieties so that all the qualities correspond to the product (taste, aroma, smell, color and price). Each factory was already quite self-sufficient and entered into contracts for the supply of tea with each country.

Packaging design

Since tea was produced in two varieties, they had to be somehow distinguished visually. So, on the package of the first grade, the elephant had a blue head color, and on the top grade tea - green. Over time, the design changed, and each of the factories had its own differences. There was only one thing: cardboard packaging, an elephant.

What design did the tea "with an elephant" have? Consider the most memorable variations: the color of the packaging was both white and orange, but yellow is more familiar to us. The elephants themselves were also different, there were packs where one elephant with the trunk lowered down steps to the left, there were also three elephants walking in the same direction, and also with the trunk lowered. The most striking example of the drawing is that with a raised trunk, stands against the backdrop of an Indian city, and the domes are clearly visible. On all of the above elephants there was a mahout.

Why do we remember the yellow packaging of tea more, where the elephant is against the background of India, and its trunk is looking up? The thing is that due to the popularity of tea, and sometimes its absence on the shelves, fakes often began to appear, where there was no smell from Indian tea, and most of the composition belonged to Turkish, terrible in quality. In this regard, citizens began to give preference to one type of packaging, which was rarely faked due to a more saturated pattern.

Symbol of the era

With memories of the times of the USSR, the image of that tea, the same elephant, soft cardboard packaging brightly pops up. Along with many products of that era (take the same condensed milk), this tea remains recognizable even in the 2000s, and more than seventy percent of the population of the former Soviet Union can remember it.

Tea "with an elephant" (price for 50 grams - 48 kopecks, and for 125 - 95 kopecks) was loved by everyone. The presence of this drink in the house spoke of the stable prosperity of the family.

But, like all good things, tea "with an elephant" once disappeared from the shelves. The USSR collapsed, and tea could still be found for some time, then it was simply swept off the shelves.

Brewing rules

Many housewives made a terrible mistake when white sticks were pulled out of a pack "with an elephant" and, mistaking them for garbage, they simply threw them away. After such stripping, it was impossible to fully experience the taste of tea, since those sticks were tips (tea buds), and this raw material is of the highest quality.

This tea is brewed in the same way as all other varieties. Pour the required amount of tea leaves into a teapot treated with boiling water, pour boiling water over it. Let it brew for at least ten minutes, you can dilute it with milk.