Iran drink · Drink in Iran
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Drink in Iran
Drink in Iran
Black tea (chāi, چای) is the national drink of alcohol-free Iran. It is served strong and with crystallised or cubed sugar (ghand, قند) which is held artfully between the teeth while tea is sipped through. You can try asking for milk in your tea, but expect nothing but strange looks or a big delay in return.
Tea houses (chāi khāneh, چای خانه) are favourite local haunt for men (and less commonly families) to drink tea and puff away on a water pipe.
Lovers of coffee (ghahveh, قهوه) have little to cheer in Iran but their choices have increased recently. Where available, it is served Turkish style, French coffee or espresso. Imported instant coffee (nescāffe, نسكافه) and instant Cappuccino are available also.
A wide variety of fruit juices (āb miveh, آب ميوه) and drinks are available from shops and street vendors including cherry cordial (sharbat ālbāloo, شربت آلبالو) and banana milkshakes (shir moz, شير موز).
Soft drinks are widely available. International products such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and their brand names including 7up, Sprite and Fanta have sold alongside local brands such as Zam Zam Cola ( زم زم كولا , Zam Zam Kola). The local cola has a taste not unlike "Coca-Cola Original" or "Pepsi Original". Both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo's concentrates entered Iran via Irish subsidiaries and circumvented the US trade embargoes until June 2010 when the Iranian government announced a boycott of both products in retaliation to ongoing UN and US trade sanctions. ZamZam's domestic market share has improved dramatically in recent years and the company has also been developing existing markets in the middle east, Europe and now also exports to Malaysia. Ironically ZamZam was originally launched in 1954 as a subsidiary of the Pepsi Cola company. As an intriguing outcome of the Iranian cola wars the real coke was generally sold in plastic bottles and the non-genuine coke, using a substitute syrup devised to overcome earlier Clinton era US imposed embargoes, was distributed in the real thing bottles that the then syrup-less bottler was left stuck with at the time.
Doogh (دوغ) is a sour drink made from yoghurt, salt, and water (sometimes gaseous) and sometimes flavoured with mint or other plants. It takes some getting used to, but will rehydrate you quickly in the heat of Iran's summer. It is the same as Turkish Ayran.
Drinking alcohol is illegal, and if seen by police may be met with punishment. Of course, you will not find any place in Iran that openly sells alcohol. Drinking is, however, common among some of people especially during parties, weddings and is tolerated for use among the small Christian and Jewish communities but only for religious purposes (eg. wine for holy communion). An interesting item of trivia is that both wine and distilled spirits are believed to have first originated in Persia. Non-alcoholic drinks are widely available.
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Iran Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.