The Russian immigrants I grew up around would make and enjoy this Cherry Syrup made with whole pie cherries in their hot tea. They used this syrup in place of sugar to sweeten their tea. I called my mother this week to get the following recipe from her to share for The-Sweet-and-Savory-of-Yummy.
This is a very simple recipe for Cherry Varenya. This is a syrup made with Cherries to sweeten hot tea with.
Cherry Varenya
1/2 Cup Water
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Whole Sour Cherries (Pie Cherries)
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
You would increase the proportions of this recipe according to how many cherries you have on hand that you want to make into Varenya.
Boil the water and sugar to make a clear simple syrup. When the liquid is clear add your cherries and let it boil for 10 to 20 minutes (depending on how hard the cherries were to begin with) At the end of the boiling add 1 Tablespoon of fresh lemon juice to help preserve the brightness of the syrup.
You may want to can it at this point. (I don’t know how to can anything so you are on your own here!) 
You can do this process with sliced lemons, too, to make a Lemon Varenya.
Lemon Varenya
When I was young our family would go to a Cherry Orchard somewhere near Lancaster, California in July when the pie cherries were ready to harvest. It might have been in the Leona Valley. We would pick cherries all day and take home upwards of 40 pounds of cherries. That’s a lot of Varenya. When we picked this much my parents would give about half of the cherries away to other relatives and friends who couldn’t make the trek out to the Cherry Farm. Then it was a full day of preparing the cherries for Varenya. Washing, cooking and canning.
For more Tea Recipes head over to Gracious Hospitality.
This sounds quite delicious….I never would have thought about putting in in tea, however. I imagine it must taste rather good, and you can eat the cherries after you have drunk the tea! I would be tempted to eat the varenya right out of the jar with a spoon. Or heat it up and put it over vanilla ice cream. Mmmmmm!
Okay. That’s it. I’m coming to your house for tea!
(I could teach you how to can something…like jam?)
What a novel idea ~ fruit sweeteners for tea! Thank you for sharing the recipes. Have a wonderful week!
I have never heard of this recipe before, but it looks great.
When I saw the heading, I thought you were going to post a recipe for cherry vereneki, which would certainly be something quite different!(and probably not spelled that way!)
Millie
Oh these jellies sound so good. I’ll have to try the cherry one! Thank you for including the photographs, too!
I love this recipe! Sometimes I make “jam tea” but this is even better! I think the sweetened pie cherries have just enough tart in them to make tea perfectly delicious! Thank you so much for teaching us how to make this!!!
LaTeaDah
Oh delish !!! Clarice
Oh this looks sooo goooooddd! I have a Chinese friend who brought me dried plums to put in my green tea once and it was delicious. Your cherries sound a little similar. What type of tea do you usualy use?
Cori, Growing up we pretty much just used good ole Lipton tea and tea bags. I have to always have Lipton on hand for my brother…
What a fabulous and unique recipe! Thanks for sharing it…Kathy@ Mimi’s Garden
Oh the joys! Great memories of going cherry picking! My favorite now is lemon. I’ll have to ask Vera if she has any!:)
The cherry flavor sounds delicious in the tea. What would you eat with the cherry flavored tea?
Willow, Anything made with a lot of butter
that is fascinating! I have never heard of that before.
This sounds delicious, and looks quite lovely too. Thanks for sharing, I love learning something new.
Thank you for sharing. I a recipe that is very similar (I use lime not lemon) and we eat ours on corrage cheese. Yum Yum!!
Wow, how interesting! I love learning new informtion about teatime.
What a unique new recipe to read about! I really enjoyed this…love cherries! Thank you for calling your mom!!
I had never heard of that. I love it and I am going to try it.
Thank you.
What an interesting addition to our blogathon! Thank you!
never been a big cherry fan although I love cherry pie, I will have to try this!!!
This sounds so delicious, wish I could try it!
Katherine
Yellow Rose Arbor
Mmmm…my husband would LOVE this condiment. It’ll have to be for something other than tea, though; the only kind of tea he drinks is iced.
Nicole
Blue Jeans Hostess
How interesting! I had never heard of such a thing! I would love to taste tea sweetened like this.
I have never heard of this before but it sounds delicious! I love cherries and when they are in season i gobble up as many as I can even if I do have to spend a fortune on them! I’d like to try this, I don’t can either, but I have a friend who does, maybe I can enlist her help. Thank you for sharing your wonderful family tradition.
Every evening, when I was a child, my mother and I would sit at the kitchen table and share a cup of tea sweetened with her homemade varenya. I would drink the tea, then fish out the warmed cherries at the bottom to enjoy as “dessert”. Mother-daughter bonding at its best. Thank you for the sweet memory!