What to Buy in Georgia (and What to Skip)

Quick answer: The Georgian things worth carrying home are minankari cloisonné enamel, churchkhela made without dyes or added sugar, qvevri wine, and spices — blue fenugreek and Svaneti salt. Buy the enamel from a gallery that can name the artist, and the churchkhela from a specialist rather than a street stall.

Minankari — the craft to spend money on

Cloisonné enamel, minankari, is one of Georgia’s oldest and most exquisite crafts: fine metal wires laid to form cells, each filled with coloured enamel and fired. It is the single most distinctive thing you can buy here.

Ornament is where locals send you to understand it properly. It opened in 2000 and is run by a working enamel artist, which is the difference between a shop and a gallery.

Gallery 27, in a lovely 1840s house on Betlemi Street in the Old Town, is a fair-trade gallery-shop and the best place in Tbilisi to buy Georgian craft that is genuinely made by Georgian hands.

What to look for: visible raised metal wires between colours, slight unevenness in the enamel surface, and a named artist. What to avoid: flat, glossy pieces where the “cells” are printed rather than raised — that is a transfer, not cloisonné, and it is common on the tourist strips.

Churchkhela, done properly

Churchkhela — nuts threaded on a string and dipped repeatedly in thickened grape must — is Georgia’s signature sweet and the most commonly faked thing on sale.

Badagi is the specialist Georgians actually trust, and has spent two decades making it the traditional way: no dyes, no added sugar, just natural ingredients. That is the whole test.

What to avoid: unnaturally bright red, green or orange churchkhela. Real churchkhela is the brown-purple of grape must. Colour means dye, and dye means sugar syrup rather than must.

In Kutaisi, the sweets and churchkhela shops around the centre also sell tklapi, the pressed fruit leather that travels even better and is easier to explain at customs.

Wine, and the qvevri question

Georgia has an 8,000-year winemaking tradition, and the part worth understanding is the qvevri — large clay vessels buried in the ground for fermentation, a method recognised by UNESCO.

The Imereti region around Kutaisi is an ancient winemaking area where families still ferment this way, and visiting a small producer is a better afternoon than any tasting room. In town, the wine and produce shops around central Kutaisi sell wine, chacha grape brandy, honey and spices.

Practical: wine is heavy and glass. Georgian customs and your airline both matter here — check your allowance before you commit to a case. Chacha is high-proof and belongs in hold luggage.

Spices, which are the smartest purchase

Light, cheap, unavailable at home, and they make you cook Georgian food once you are back. Blue fenugreek (utskho suneli), Svaneti salt, marigold, and dried chilli blends are the ones to look for.

Buy them at a bazaar rather than a souvenir shop. The Kutaisi Green Bazaar is a vast, genuinely working market where farmers and traders from across Imereti sell produce, cheeses, spices, churchkhela, wine and household goods. In Batumi, Boni Gorod is the main covered market for the same.

Craft cooperatives and social enterprises

Georgia has an unusually good set of these, and the goods are genuinely nice rather than charity-shop worthy.

Social Concept Store ESKI near Orbeliani Square stocks handmade goods from more than 25 Georgian social enterprises under one roof — makers include people with disabilities and single mothers. If you only make one shopping stop in Tbilisi, this is a strong candidate: one visit, many makers.

Babale in the Old Town is a social enterprise working with children and adults with Down syndrome, who help create the clothing, textiles and homewares it sells.

Around Kutaisi, the Imeretian craft cooperatives keep cloisonné enamelling, ceramics, felt-making and weaving going through small workshops. The craft shops in Kutaisi’s old streets carry enamel jewellery, ceramics, felt, woodwork, textiles and icons.

In Batumi, the Boulevard craft market along the seafront has local artisans selling cloisonné jewellery, hand-painted ceramics, felt and woodwork directly.

Two more, for the trip rather than the suitcase

Cafe Mziuri, in Vake’s Mziuri Park, is a social enterprise whose profits go straight back into maintaining the park — and it was the first cafe in Georgia designed for accessibility.

Borjgalo Ethnographic Museum on the green edge of Batumi recreates Adjarian village life with wooden houses and dozens of costumed figures showing weavers, beekeepers and winemakers at work. Go before you shop and you will understand what you are looking at.

If you are in Tbilisi in winter, the Christmas market at Deda Ena Park fills with wooden stalls of handmade crafts and Georgian treats.

What to skip

Brightly dyed churchkhela. See above. It is sugar syrup in a costume.

Printed “enamel”. If the surface is perfectly flat, it is not cloisonné.

Drinking horns sold on the tourist strips. The kantsi is a real object with a real role in a supra, but the mass-produced resin versions are not it.

Mall shopping. Batumi’s malls stock the same international brands as everywhere else. You did not come here for that.

Frequently asked questions

What should I buy in Georgia?

Minankari cloisonné enamel from a gallery that can name the artist, churchkhela made without dyes or added sugar, qvevri-fermented wine, and spices such as blue fenugreek and Svaneti salt. Craft from social enterprises like ESKI in Tbilisi is a good single stop covering many makers.

How do I tell real churchkhela from fake?

Real churchkhela is the brown-purple colour of thickened grape must. Bright red, green or orange versions have been dyed and usually contain added sugar syrup rather than must. Badagi in Tbilisi has made it the traditional way for two decades with no dyes and no added sugar.

What is minankari?

Georgian cloisonné enamel — one of the country’s oldest crafts, made by laying fine metal wires into cells that are filled with coloured enamel and fired. Look for raised wires between the colours; a perfectly flat glossy surface means it is printed, not cloisonné.

Where do locals buy spices in Georgia?

At working bazaars rather than souvenir shops. The Kutaisi Green Bazaar draws farmers and traders from across Imereti, and Boni Gorod is Batumi’s main covered market. Blue fenugreek and Svaneti salt are the two most useful things to bring home.

Can I bring Georgian wine home?

Yes, but plan for it. Wine is heavy and glass, and chacha is high-proof so it must travel in hold luggage. Check your airline’s allowance before buying a case. The Imereti region around Kutaisi is where families still ferment in buried clay qvevri, a method recognised by UNESCO.

More Georgia reading: Tbilisi lemonade spots · Things to do in Tbilisi · Things to do in Batumi. Or browse our full Tbilisi guide, Kutaisi guide and Batumi guide.