Long before tea reached Russia, there was sbiten: honey simmered in water with spices and herbs, first mentioned in the chronicles in the twelfth century. Street sellers carried it hot through the winter cities in copper urns wrapped in cloth, and their kit is often credited as one of the ancestors of the samovar. Peter the Great is said to have had it served to the workers building St Petersburg against the cold. Then tea and coffee arrived, and sbiten spent the better part of two centuries in quiet retirement before a recent revival.

It tastes like a hot gingerbread you can drink: sweet with honey, warm with ginger and cinnamon, with a faint bite of pepper and the fruitiness of a spoon of jam. It is alcohol free, though Russians sometimes add a splash of wine or brandy, and it is the right thing to hold through a cold, damp qualifying session, whichever side of the screen you are on.

The spiced infusion

Ingredients

• 4 cups (950 ml) water
• 1 piece (2 inches / 5 cm) fresh ginger
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 whole cloves
• 4 green cardamom pods
• 6 black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 strip lemon peel

Sweetening and serving

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup (115 g) honey
• 2 tablespoons blackcurrant, raspberry or cherry jam
• 4 thin lemon slices
• 4 fresh mint sprigs

More from Russia