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Russian Tea
Pour little water over three heaping tablespoonfuls of English breakfast-tea in a tea pot. The water should be boiling and just sufficient to cover the tea; let it infuse for a minute or two, then draw the water off. Next pour in half a pony of Jamaica rum, together with three pints of boiling water, infuse for four minutes and serve in a cup, with a decanter of old Jamaica rum separately, with thin slices of lemon and some powdered sugar.
A hotel service formula rather than a household one: strong black tea, a rinse of the leaves, a whisper of rum in the pot and the bottle brought to the table so each drinker can adjust. The measurements translate cleanly once you know what a pony is.
- A ponyA pony is one fluid ounce, so half a pony is about a tablespoon — barely enough to perfume three pints of tea. The decanter passed alongside is where the actual drinking rum comes from.
- The first pour is discardedThat initial splash of boiling water, drawn off after a minute or two, rinses dust and bitterness from the leaf. It is a real technique, still used with rolled and compressed teas, but note that Oscar lets it sit far longer than the few seconds a modern rinse takes; ten to twenty seconds is enough with a broken-leaf black tea or you will pour off much of the flavour.
- StrengthThree heaping tablespoons is roughly 20–25 g of leaf for three pints (about 1.4 litres). That is strong by current habits but appropriate here, since the tea is meant to be cut with lemon, sugar and spirit.
- Four minutes, and no longerThe hinge of the recipe. Black tea held past about five minutes turns astringent, and astringency plus lemon plus rum is unpleasant. Decant off the leaves rather than letting the pot stand.
- English breakfastIn the 1890s the name generally meant a robust Chinese-led black blend, sometimes cut with Ceylon, rather than the Assam-forward blends sold under the name now, though what any given seller packed varied. Any brisk unflavoured black tea works; avoid anything bergamot-scented.
- Jamaica rum"Old Jamaica" was a trade term for aged Jamaican rum, which in this period would generally have been pot-distilled and comparatively estery. A modern aged Jamaican rum is the closest match; a light column-still white rum will disappear entirely.
- Lemon, not milkThe Russian style is taken clear with lemon and sugar. Milk will curdle against the lemon and muddy the rum, so it is not offered.
- YieldThree pints serves six to eight teacups, which is the scale a hotel dining room worked at. Halve everything for a domestic pot.
Tea reached Russia overland from China in the seventeenth century and was drunk strong, clear and sweetened, brewed as a concentrate in a small pot set atop a samovar and diluted from the urn below — which is why "Russian tea" in Western hotels came to mean tea with lemon rather than milk, served in a glass or thin cup. Oscar Tschirky's version, written for the Waldorf's dining rooms in the 1890s, adds the American hotel touch of spirits and a decanter left on the table, closer in spirit to a hot toddy than to anything served in Moscow. The name drifted further in the twentieth century, attaching in the United States to a powdered mix of instant tea, orange drink and spice that has little to do with either Russia or this recipe.