The glass came into Russian tea drinking from the tavern. A porcelain cup was considered a lady's table item, while men drank from glass and burned their fingers. A solution was found by the end of the 18th century: a thin metal frame with a handle turned the hot glass into a convenient vessel and also provided jewelers with a field for work.

The heyday of the genre was in the 1880s to 1910s. The glass holder became a mass gift item: it was presented at anniversaries and in the workplace, with engraved dedications. The workshops of Ovchinnikov, Khlebnikov, Sazikov, Grachev, and the Fabergé firm produced 84-proof silver with niello, blackening, and painted enamel. The themes included troikas, scenes from epics and operas, views of the Kremlin, monograms, and ornamentation in the 'Russian style,' which was then the passion of the entire applied arts school.
The revolution did not abolish the genre but rewrote it. The Kolchugino factory began producing melchior and neysilber for the railways, and the glass holder became a part of train life - along with the conductor's tea. The decor also changed: instead of troikas - the Spasskaya Tower, a satellite, a portrait of Gagarin, coats of arms of the union republics, and the Olympic bear.