Seto tsäimaja (teahouse) – a foreign country within Estonia

Every Estonian must strain one’s eyes and rack one’s brain while reading the menu in the Seto dialect on the wall of the teahouse. Still, some things remain unclear. As for the food, it also has a taste of local dialects, yet the language of taste is universal. For all nations.

Tsäimaja or teahouse is an eating place within a small open air museum. The museum introduces the heritage and life-style of Setos. So does Tsäimaja. One could only wish for more museums like this where the food would be part of the heritage introduced. Not just coffee, cake and coca-cola.   

While the farm buildings and the yard are just silent and do not tell any stories, the food kindly conveys everything in its own language. It makes more sense to look around in the museum after tasting soup, porridge and cheese, not the other way round.