I was reminded by my Russian friends that I never mentioned on this forum a very unusual tea brewing method that is used by field geologists, hunters, reindeer herders and other old-timers in Siberian taiga. Its called "Zherebchik" tea (zhe-'reb-chik with emphasis on -reb-) or "Colt tea". In Russian "zherebchik" is a diminutive from "zherebets", which means - stallion and in its diminutive form sounds very homely, playful and tender.
This is how you do it: every self-respecting "taiezhnik" ("taiga man" - similar to what would be a "mountain man" in American West) keeps with him or knows how to find the good ones on the banks of Siberian rivers, a bunch of thumbnail sized washed stones". These are heated on the campfire coals usually inside an old burned tin can. You need two of such cans usually. Tea (almost always black, brick or loose) is put into a large (1- 2 liters) ceramic teapot (usually this would be an old beat-up medium thick walled ceramic or mass-produced white clay variety similar to what is used here in cheap Chinese restaurants). Then it is filled to 1/3 or 1/2 with COLD spring or clean stream water. Some people wait a bit to allow tea leaves get thoroughly wet, some do not wait at all. After that the first batch of almost red-hot stones goes in and the art of making a good zherebchik is to watch closely how water behaves and do not allow boiling by stopping adding stones at the right moment. The sound of that operation reminds one of the sounds colts and horses make, and this is how (I am guessing here) the tea got its name. I short time later more COLD water is added and the second batch of hot stones goes in. Some people allow quite some boiling, some just a touch, some not at all. The tea is covered and after a minute of two is served. This is a rough style tea ceremony - the teapot is usually look like it outlived Hiroshima attack, the tea is served into beat-up, rough, ugly metal mugs, the uglier the better, etc. Usually people keep silence while an older guy makes the Zherebchik, but this is not a rule - just comes as a natural reaction to the whole process after a long, hard day's work or long exhausting walk along treacherous banks of Siberian rivers. I always asked locals if and where a wild variety of thyme can be found and add fresh thyme to zherebchik (just add several long twigs after its completely done for 1 minute with their talks sticking out into the teapot and take them out), which makes usually cheap rough black tea much finer. Actually fresh thyme makes even fine black teas very interesting, especially after heavy meal - and this is from me, who hates all "aromatized" teas.
Choosing stones for zherebchik is not as simple as it may sound - the stones has to be able to withstand many cycles of heat and fast cooling without breaking, which requires some geological knowledge (plus you do not want stones that may have even specs of auripigment or cinnabar in it, let alone uranium, which are much more common that one may think! White "sugar" quartz (not clear, transparent variety) fine-grained diorites, olivinites and other sturdy rocks are good. Granite, sienite, gabbros or any rock that is non monomineral will be cracking, bursting, falling apart due to the difference in heat expansion coefficients of neighboring mineral grains. If you decide to make the zherebchik tea at home - do not heat the stones on gas - the tea will smell foul. You can heat them on an electric stove or, if gas is your only option, put them first in a previously burned to the brown-blue color tin can. I actually use such a can when I heat the stones on an electrical stove too because they are easier to handle that way. Zherebchik has lots of variables - to wait or not to wait for tea leaves to get wet, to allow first batch to boil the tea or not, to boil or not and for how long, etc. So zherebchik tea allows for you to show off your art. I am trying to convince some of my Russian friends to develop it into a true restaurant tea presentation keeping the rough nature of the zherebchik, its Siberian spirit and campfire nature.
Anyway - I hope you guys try this one day.
Sasha.