THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO FIREWEED TEA: PART 2
THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO FIREWEED TEA: PART 2
The History of Fireweed Tea:
From Indigenous Traditions to Ivan Chai
The History of Fireweed Tea: From Indigenous Traditions to Ivan Chai Part 2
In Part 2 of the Complete Guide to Fireweed Tea, trace fireweed’s remarkable journey from Indigenous medicine to Russian cultural phenomenon. Discover how Russian Ivan Chai transformed from fraudulent substitute to imperial ban, wartime necessity, and viral sensation, while separating historical fact from modern myth.
Across northern climates, fireweed has played a significant role in traditional cultures. In Russia, it was processed into a black tea known as Ivan Chai. Traditional food preparations by indigenous populations in both North America and Eastern Russia included adding young fireweed leaves to fish and meat soups, while tender spring shoots were often cooked similarly to asparagus. Beyond its culinary applications, it was also used for crafts and medicine.¹
Ancient Roots of Russia
The first documented origins trace back to the indigenous peoples of Kamchatka Peninsula during Russia’s Great Northern Expedition in the 1700s. The Ainu, Koryak, and Itelmen communities pioneered the use of non-oxidized fireweed herbal tea as both sustenance and medicine, considering it among their most valuable plants. These skilled practitioners created everything from nutritious vegetables to fermented beverages from different parts of the plant, with the sweet inner pith being particularly prized.¹
Oxidized fireweed tea is today widely known in Russia as Ivan Chai (or Ivan chaj). Depending on the region, fireweed tea goes by many other names, including rosebay willowherb tea, Ivan tea, Koporsky tea (also spelt Koporye or Kapor), Russian tea and Soviet tea.⁹ For the purpose of this article, we will use the different names interchangeably, mostly using the terms fireweed tea and Ivan Chai to describe this tea.
Although commonly referred to as ‘fermentation,’ the traditional processing of Ivan Chai is, in fact, oxidation and mirrors the production of Chinese black tea. When the leaves are rolled and exposed to oxygen in the air, natural enzymes create chemical changes that develop the tea’s rich flavour and dried leaf dark colour.
From Tea Fraud to Imperial Ban
After interviewing Alexander Vovniy, founder of Russian Ivan Chai company NOMAD, we learned that the journey of fireweed tea in Russian culture took unexpected twists and turns. Chinese tea first arrived in Russia through camel caravan routes in the early 17th century, travelling approximately 11,000 kilometres from China, requiring a six-month journey that made it extraordinarily expensive. The tsarist government imposed duties of 80-120% on top of the purchase price, plus transportation and security costs, resulting in tea costing 10-12 times more in Russia than in comparable Western European markets supplied by sea routes.⁸
This extreme cost naturally provoked great deals of tea adulteration beginning in the early 18th century. As tea’s popularity grew in the second half of the 19th century, poor citizens sought cheaper local substitutes while illegal dealers deployed increasingly sophisticated counterfeiting operations. Each region developed its own preferences, such as oak, ash, birch, and willow leaves, which were crushed and tinted with dyes in some areas. In Siberia, badan leaves were favoured, and on the Caucasus border, blueberry leaves were used.⁸
However, the most widely used plant substitute for Chinese tea was narrow-leaved fireweed. The town of Koporye near St. Petersburg became the centre of this falsification industry, producing tens of thousands of pounds annually by the late 18th century. To process “Koporye tea,” producers grounded the leaves with clay as the soil facilitated the mechanical processing necessary for oxidation, while acids gave the leaves a brown colour resembling real black tea. This counterfeit was massively sold in Moscow and St. Petersburg, distributed throughout the empire, and even smuggled abroad to mix with Chinese tea.⁸
Rather than being celebrated, Ivan Chai was banned throughout the Russian Empire during the 1800s for being used as a fraudulent substitute for lucrative imported Chinese black tea. This can easily be explained by a decrease in revenue from duties on imported Chinese tea by the tsarist government. According to Vovniy, in 1833, a formal ban was issued on the sale of counterfeit tea and the collection of fireweed for “Koporye tea” production.⁸ Court records from 1888 document major prosecutions against merchants who mixed fireweed tea leaves with Camellia sinensis tea leaves to deceive customers.¹ This brings to light the similarities Ivan Chai has with some varieties of Chinese black tea, both visually and in terms of flavour profile.
The prohibition situation began to change rapidly in the second half of the 19th century when seaborne tea imports began arriving through Odessa in 1862, and railways operating in the east during the 1880s reduced delivery time and costs. Chinese tea prices plummeted, making it an accessible everyday beverage. In 1886, tea was introduced into army food allowances.⁸
By the early 1900s, fireweed tea gained official recognition and was marketed as a national “Soviet tea.” Key figures emerged during this transformation, including forester Anton Bernatskii, who advocated for widespread cultivation, Professor Ivan Palibin9, who promoted its use during wartime shortages in Leningrad, and Professor Arkadii Koshcheev, whose fermentation techniques sparked modern interest.¹
Wartime Survival and Military Legends
According to Russia Beyond, Peter Badmayev, a famous Tibetan medicine practitioner in the late 19th century, would have reportedly used it to treat patients, including Tsar Alexander III.⁴ However, according to our sources, this is totally false.
Another striking story that can be found on the web claims a research centre was established in the 1920s near St. Petersburg to produce Ivan Chai for the Red Army, later destroyed during World War II by the Germans. Some even suggest Hitler believed the herb was the source of the Red Army’s strength.⁴ However, these two claims are difficult to verify historically, and several sources, including Vovniy, report that these stories are entirely false marketing.⁴
What is true, however, is that during World War II, wild plants became crucial during severe food shortages. Fireweed was mentioned in almost all botanical manuals from 1941-1946 as an important food plant and tea substitute.⁹
Brochure “How to prepare tea and coffee from cultivated and wild plants of Leningrad Oblast” from Ivan V. Palibin (1942)
In these wartime guides, fireweed was valued not only as a tea substitute but as a versatile food source. Young leaves and shoots could be eaten as salad or mashed into seasonings for various dishes. Young root shoots were prepared like asparagus or cabbage, and the sweet roots were consumed as vegetables. These multiple uses made fireweed particularly valuable during periods of extreme scarcity, as it could be harvested from widespread areas where it formed continuous thickets, facilitating large-scale collection. ⁸
During the Siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), where at least 1 million people died of starvation, Ivan Chai served as one of the tea substitutes used by besieged citizens, partisans, and villagers.⁸ Ivan Chai was also used to support military troops, perhaps due to the fact that it can be brewed multiple times without losing beneficial properties, including its anti-inflammatory compounds and high vitamin C content. It could be stored for a week after preparation.⁴
The Social Media Revival
Around 2010, a popular trend emerged calling for all-natural Russian-made products. Some merchants took advantage of this trend by creating legends and half-truths surrounding Ivan Chai and its cultural history. For instance, one of the most widespread stories on the internet says that Ivan Chai was one of the largest Russian exportations in Europe alongside wheat, fur and vodka. Alexander Vovniy, a pioneer of modern Ivan Chai production, investigated these claims in 2011 and traced much of the disinformation to one source. Moreover, he became the first fireweed tea producer in Russia to import specialized tea machines from Asia, developing production techniques that made Ivan Chai visually indistinguishable from classic Chinese tea. His method eventually became the basis for a state standard for Ivan Chai, introduced in Russia in 2024.⁸
In-depth research by Kalle and colleagues (2020) revealed that mass widespread consumption of “the fermented version of Ivan-chai has been seen mainly [since 2015 approximately].”¹‘² It reveals that many historical claims about traditional tea production lack proper documentation and may be part of a modern reinvention of Ivan Chai’s heritage.¹
Interest in Ivan Chai spiked dramatically around 2013, coinciding with Russian television programs promoting its “glorious history.” Academic researchers investigated these claims, finding that “social media is overflowing with information on Ivan-chaj and its ‘glorious’ history, which uses elements of the past to build a believable narrative.”²
As Ivan Chaï gained popularity, neighboring countries began adapting the story to claim it as their own cultural heritage. In Estonia, one woman created her own story: “It is the plant that Peter I always gave to his soldiers as a mandatory drink, because it preserves men’s virility.” ²
The Spread Beyond Russia
Apart from those modern narrative controversies, fireweed tea is genuinely gaining popularity throughout Nordic countries, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe, where people widely consume it for being a healthy, local, caffeine-free tea.
With Russia as its original homeland, several Ivan Chai businesses are thriving there, ranging from large-scale factories to specialized artisanal producers focused on high-quality, small-batch processing. This growing industry has sparked similar entrepreneurial ventures across the Northern Hemisphere.
In Canada, artisanal producers and enthusiastic amateurs promote its caffeine-free nature and health benefits through online content and local markets.
In 2018, a young Canadian with a passion for herbs stumbled upon something unexpected while browsing for heirloom seeds and garden tools on a Russian ecovillage website: authentic black tea from fireweed. This discovery would eventually lead him to establish a business called Tea of the North several years later, bringing locally-foraged fireweed tea to customers across Canada… Maybe you have heard of him ? 😉
Northern Indigenous Connections
While the Russian Ivan Chai narrative is partly reinvented, Indigenous peoples across North America and Eastern Russia (Siberia, Kamchatka and the Far East) have authentic, well-documented traditional relationships with fireweed spanning many generations.
According to the USDA Plant Guide, the Indigenous peoples of North America used fireweed in multiple ways. Many harvested the sweet pith of young stems as a spring food, either eating it raw or cooking it like asparagus. Some used the leafy stems for flavouring or as matting in cooking pits.⁵
This plant also served practical purposes. Interior Peoples used fireweed as a medicinal salve against eczema and skin conditions. Coastal First Nations twisted dried stem peelings into twine for fishing nets, and some mixed the seed fluff with animal hair for weaving and padding.⁵ It was even used as a tobacco substitute.10
From Wild Plant to Artisanal Tea
In Part 3: Sustainable Harvesting and Processing of Fireweed Tea (to be published this spring), discover how Tea of the North craftsmans pick fireweed leaves in Quebec’s Abitibi region and applie centuries-old oxidation methods to create Canada’s first loose leaf tea.
You might also enjoy the subsequent parts of this Complete Guide, which will be published soon.
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Written by Drasko Saban
Reviewed by Julien Drouin-Bouffard
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References
- Kalle, R., Belichenko, O., Kuznetsova, N., Kolosova, V., Prakofjewa, J., Stryamets, N., Mattalia, G., Šarka, P., Simanova, A., Prūse, B., Mezaka, I., & Sõukand, R. (2020). “Gaining momentum: Popularization of Epilobium angustifolium as food and recreational tea on the Eastern edge of Europe.” Appetite, 150, 104638.
- Prakofjewa, J., Kalle, R., Belichenko, O., Kolosova, V., & Sõukand, R. (2020). “Re-written narrative: transformation of the image of Ivan-chaj in Eastern Europe.” Heliyon, 6(8), e04632.
- Sõukand, R., Mattalia, G., Kolosova, V., Stryamets, N., Prakofjewa, J., Belichenko, O., Kuznetsova, N., Minuzzi, S., Keedus, L., Prūse, B., Simanova, A., Ippolitova, A., & Kalle, R. (2020). “Inventing a herbal tradition: The complex roots of the current popularity of Epilobium angustifolium in Eastern Europe.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 247, 112254.
- Kravchenko, A. (2017, October 4). “5 wild herbs Russians like to brew up to keep warm.” Russia Beyond. https://www.rbth.com/russian-kitchen/326320-5-russian-herbal-tea
- Vovniy, A. (2015). Interviews with Aleksander Vovniy and “Facts about Ivan Chai.” NOMAD Tea & More. https://nomad-tm.ru/facts-ivan-chai
- Palibin, I. V. (1942). Kak prigotovit’ chai i kofe iz kul’turnykh i dikorastushchikh rastenii Lenoblasti [How to prepare tea and coffee from cultivated and wild plants of Leningrad Oblast] (A. A. Korchagin, Ed.). Leningradskoe Gazetno-Zhurnal’noe i Knizhnoe Izdatel’stvo. (Original work compiled from “Tea and coffee from cultivated and wild plants”)
- Manitoba Agriculture. (n.d.). Fireweed. Government of Manitoba. Retrieved from https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/crops/crop-management/fireweed.html