Dolyna Teplyts eco-brand, Zarichchia

Dolyna Teplyts (“Greenhouse Valley”) is an eco-brand selling preserves and dried fruit from greenhouse farms in the Borzhava valley. Its home is Zarichchia, a village between the Borzhava and Irshavka rivers near Irshava that has long been famous across Ukraine for greenhouses, seedlings and cabbage fields. The brand was presented in 2021 at the Uzhhorod press club: local entrepreneurs teamed up to get through the lockdown restrictions together and sell their own produce with a local flavour that would also appeal to visitors. They began with dried fruit and preserves, later adding sauces, lekvars and fruit crisps. The brand is listed among Transcarpathia's craft producers on the region's official tourism portal.

How to buy and why to try

The producer does not advertise tours or tastings in Zarichchia, so Dolyna Teplyts is above all about edible gifts to take home from Zakarpattia. You can order through the brand's Instagram and Facebook pages or find the products in shops in Khust, Irshava, nearby villages, Mukachevo and Uzhhorod. If your route passes through Irshava, message the producer in advance and arrange to pick up an order on the way. What makes these jars worthwhile is that they are made where the vegetables and fruit grow: tomatoes, peppers and plums are processed fresh, and the taste is home-made rather than industrially uniform. The jars with their distinctive hand-lettered labels look good both as a gift for friends and as a reminder of the trip.

What to try

• chilli sauce with marigolds — an unexpected mix of heat and floral aroma;
• sun-dried tomatoes in oil and dried plums;
• plum, orange and cinnamon confiture and a souvenir trio of lekvars with confiture;
• “dribliank”;
• dried rosehips, apples and eco crisps made from dried fruit.

Drying fruit and boiling down lekvar is an old Transcarpathian tradition: in autumn, villages of the Borzhava valley dried plums and apples on stoves and in drying sheds and cooked fruit butter in copper cauldrons to last the winter. Warm riverside air and fertile soil made Zarichchia one of the region's biggest vegetable-growing villages, with greenhouses on almost every plot. Dolyna Teplyts brings both traditions together: greenhouse vegetables and orchard fruit become preserves that keep well and travel easily.

Practical information

• Where: Zarichchia village, Khust district (formerly Irshava district), Zakarpattia region. No production address is published — ask by phone.
• Phone: +380967239906; e-mail [email protected].
• Social media: Instagram dolyna_teplyts and the brand's Facebook page, handy for checking the range and ordering.
• Getting there: Zarichchia lies a few kilometres south-west of Irshava, about 25 km from Mukachevo. Minibuses run from Mukachevo and Irshava, but a car is the most convenient.
• Hours and prices: not published; arrange in advance if you want to buy directly in Zarichchia.

Please confirm by phone before your trip.

Website and social media: instagram.com · facebook.com

Photos: zaktour.gov.ua; i.ytimg.com; instagram.com.