Saturday Word: Piyāla + Contest Announcement

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

pi·ya·la [ˈpēyälä]:
origin: Persian- پیاله‎; Uzbek: piyola- Russian- пиала́

noun
I recently acquired a catalog for Russian tea sets (manufactured for a store in New York City), which is fascinating in the cultural differences of mere eating habits. Surely England's high tea is well known, but alternate versions perhaps less so. Myself and an older friend puzzled over the word "palaya" applied to a specific set, which simply turned out to mean: a small bowl used to drink tea out of, used across the Middle-East and Asia for far longer than the British have been sipping leaves.

Not that Russians don't similarly enjoy elegant-handled porcelain cups with gold-trimmed flourishes, though they have more focus on decorative Samovars and accessories for caviar. Mmn, caviar.

Contest Announcement
Now until September, every comment will be added to a hat, the more comments then the more entries, and a winner will be drawn at the beginning of next month for a free 2 month LiveJournal subscription. Wordsmiths included. *runner-up gets a userhead of their choice

Comments have to be meaningful, not smiley faces or "nice" (etc). I also enourage you to state what sorts of words you prefer, what you like about the word, have you learned anything from 1word1day, and anything else you'd like to see in the future.

If the contest goes well, then I may do something like this again! ☆

Comments

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

Thank you and may I say: awesome icon. *chucks name in hat*

[totta-kai.livejournal.com]

Russian custom of drinking very hot tea is to sip it from the saucer :)

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

I have seen that once or twice and always wondered why. Thank you! *puts name into hat*

[totta-kai.livejournal.com]

My personal theory is that in Russian climate one would want to consume the tea at it's hottest, sipping it from the saucer allows for small controlled sips so to not burn one's mouth. Sometimes, it's to get the opposite effect: it cools faster.

Often, Russian tea services have deeper than usual saucers because of this.

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

Thank you; that was an excellent contribution to this post, both in fact and artwork.

[totta-kai.livejournal.com]

My pleasure :)

the artwork is by this artist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Kustodiev

[med_cat]

Ah, the famous painting by Kustodiev ;)

You forgot another detail--it's to drink tea from the saucer while sucking it through a cube of sugar held between the teeth :P

[med_cat]

I like your word ;) We had these, but they were larger and deeper, like bowls really, so we used them for soup.

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

I have china like that, since I met a lovely Korean woman who insisted on making tea for me in typical tea ceremony fashion, I've enjoyed tea as well as soup out of bowls like that.

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

I thought that was done with "red tea" in Persia (served in small clear glasses)?

They do this with sugar cubes in Russia as well?

[med_cat]

Makes sense :)

Our were ceramic.

[med_cat]

Used to; that custom has rather fallen out of fashion in the last century or so, as you can imagine...and it was always not a high society custom ;)

Or, one can do this:

WANT

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

That looks wonderful.

Re: WANT

[med_cat]

All these things can be bought ;) Is it the edibles you want, or the glass-holder?

(and, I think I know which words I'll post this Friday, thanks for the idea ;))