Culture

People who are unfamiliar with the country of Turkey assume the national drink is coffee, but in fact, tea is the inseparable drink of Turkish culture. Women, family, and friends often meet in tea gardens, while men flock to the male dominated teahouses that are a focal point of most villages and towns.
Meaning “To love is like tea, to be loved is like sugar. The poor like us drink their tea without sugar.”

Turkey has advanced tremendously over the last 15 years and this has caused intense discussion in some circles as to whether modern and urban development is killing culture and traditions. The positive kickback to these concerns is many people from the older generations are making a concentrated effort to keep old traditions alive and one of them is Ebru painting, a creative art-form dating from the Ottoman Empire.