Turkey is known for its food and drinks. This country attracts many visitors and tourists to get a bite from their delicious foods and drink as low as a sip or as much as a bowl to cool off in hot summer or warm their bodies in freezing winter. Turkey is proud that despite the modernization, locals and foreigners still highly enjoy the traditional drinks here.
Here in this article, I want to introduce to you the best beverages you can drink in Turkey, each with different tastes than others. So, stay with me.
Şalgam Suyu (Pickled Turnip Juice)
This is one of the most potent drinks or beverages in which you can find in Turkey. It is a nutrient beverage, and it includes β-carotene, group B vitamins, calcium, potassium, and iron. It is extracted from the fermented Turnip, and it has a burning taste. Great to drink cold, and a wonderful digestive substance for your lunch or dinner. Şalgam Suyu translated to English means Turnip juice, but with just asking for Shalgham, pronounced as I wrote, they give you this drink.
It has a salty and sour taste, but it does not have any salt in it. The salty taste is all because of the nutrients in the drink. One of the best choices for having it with your kebab or steak. It’s nonalcoholic.
Pomegranate juice
Pomegranate as it is said in Holy Bible is a fruit that came from heaven. That is the reason we all in Turkey love drinking it, not just because of the Bible though, but because of the taste, the series of Vitamins it supplies for our body such as Vitamin C and K, and the minerals. You can find Pomegranate drink all over the year in Turkey, but the best time of year to drink it, and be sure that it is a fresh juice, is from September to December.
Turkish Tea
Turkish citizens are known for being heavy Tea drinkers. All of them drink it in the morning. However, drinking Tea was not something popular and common before 1950. Actually, Turkish People are really dependent on caffeine, and the price of coffee beans surged dramatically and which forced them to find an alternative. Black tea that introduced and grandly consumed amongst the Turkish citizens and despite the decrease in the price of coffee beans, it is still highly used.
Turkish citizens are owning the first place in tea consumption. Their favorite
Tea, which has a higher range of Caffeine in it, is called “tavşan kanı”, meaning Rabbit blood.
Salep
A great drink for cold winters. Saleb or Sahleb, is the name of an ingredient that works as a thickener due to containing starch, it makes a drink tasty and thinker in texture. Usually, Saleb which is mainly sold in street stalls in Turkey, is hot milk, with cinnamon and Saleb on it. It’s energetic and great for your health. People also use it for a diet to lose weight.
Ayran (Turkish yogurt drink)
This is a cool and refreshing dairy product that has been widely consumed for centuries in Turkey and Iran. The Ayran is made with yogurt as the main ingredient and water with the possibility of other flavors. In almost every restaurant or supermarket you can find it in different packages and sizes. By the way, the best one with the highly heavy and sleepy consequence one is the one you can get in traditional restaurants in a chromic mug with a foam on the edge called “Yayik ayran”.
Turkish Coffee
Turkish coffee which we all know has a different taste than others. Turkish coffee unlike other coffee is made by boiling than brewing or adding hot water to it.
Since 1517 AD, when the Ottoman empire colonized a town in Yemen named Mocha, the coffee beans growing there were introduced and consumed by the Turkish people and since then, Turkey had something to boost their minds with it.
In Turkey, the coffee is served in cups with Turkish delights or sweets.
Nane Limon (dried mint and lemon)
A hot and healthy drink, specially made for the cold winter which helps you to not get cold. Its nothing special in it, just lemon juice, dried mint, and hot water. Some people add dried paper or even cinnamon to it, which makes it great, and more influential. I guarantee that it prevents you from getting cold. Just try it.
Raki
The most powerful Turkish drink, with the alcohol range between 40% to 50%. It is extracted from grapes and raisins, with pungent anise as extra flavor. In natural mode, it’s transparent, like water. But when you add ice or water to it, which you should, it turns to a milky color.
In taste, it’s like the Greek ouzo and French pastis. Turkish citizens call it “Lion milk? Because of the milky color of it.
I strongly advise you to not drink it on empty stomach, even if you are a heavy drinker, and always have snacks or nuts while drinking Raki. It is said that if you drink Raki, you should not drink anything else on that day. I have not tried it myself, but it might be true.
Efes Pilsen
Efes is a Breweries group that operates in Turkey, and does the export to many countries, from Russia, and Eastern Europe, to the Commonwealth countries such as Australia and the UK. It has good quality and tastes and smells very nice of grain and malt. Efes is making non-alcoholic drinks too, for the Muslim citizens in Turkey and other Muslim countries.
The Efes has 5% alcohol, and its color is bright, like the Heineken.
Boza
This is another energetic drink with lots of fiber in it. It’s made from fermented grains and it’s widely used in many countries from Albania to Africa. The main substance might be wheat or millet, Herzegovina and barley or maize (corn), and wheat. In Turkey, they use maize (corn) and wheat to make this energy drink. It’s a thick drink, with a low rate of alcohol, around 1%, and has a slight acidity and sweet taste.
You can find this drink in almost any supermarket in Turkey. But I feel that tastes better in street food stalls and restaurants.
Apple Tea
Turkish people as highly loved tea citizens have many different forms of tea, from black tea to green tea, to flavored ones the flavor varies from cinnamon to apple, lemon or tulip, and ginger. The apple tea, unlike most of the other forms of tea, has no tea leaves in it, and is completely made out of a dried apple. It’s very helpful to decrease your blood pressure, and keep your body cool and digestive also.
You can find it freshly boiled in food stalls, or you can buy the package and use it for your health. It tastes great, and it makes your body cool in hot summer.
