More than a drink: Turkish Coffee

Written by Umut on March 7th, 2010 in Eat &Drink, Turkish Culture 

Photo by Charkrem 

I’m one of those people who likes to drink coffee as a first thing in the morning. Coffee is a like a wake up call, a morning pleasure, a working inspiration, a break from busy times, a reason to share and an indispensable taste for me…  But among my addiction for all kinds of coffee, there’s one special kind which is not only a drink but also a ritual. It’s not the kind of coffee that can be grabbed on the way to work but deserves a special time to enjoy it. It’s called “Turkish Coffee” and I’m in love with it!

Coffee as a name comes from the Arabic word “qahwa” and the term “coffee” is also derived from the Turkish word “kahve.” It means ‘a drink made from the berries of plants’. There’s a legendary story of an Ethiopian shepherd’s sheep which stayed awake all night after eating coffee berries. Shepherd’s name was Kaldi who also tried the berries himself and discovered the same effects alertness. In Turkey, they say ‘coffee comes from Yemen’ which actually refers to coffee’s first use in Sufi ceremonies in Yemen. Sufis stayed up all night for praying by the help of coffee. The first coffee house (kahvehane) was opened in Cairo in 1521. In a short time coffee gained a reputation as the miracle drink among Islamic communities in Cairo, Damascus and Aleppo which were a part of Ottoman Empire. Finally in 1555, it came to Istanbul and was introduced to Western world by Turks later in the 17th century. Since then, coffee has played an important part in the lifestyle of the Turkish people.

There is a Turkish proverb that says “A cup of coffee commits one to forty years of friendship”. In the Turkish culture where coffee is served at the start of any visit, there’s grace and splendor as well as friendship and happiness. It’s mostly drunk after meals and very popular among Turkish housewives as “morning coffee” which is served after breakfast/before lunch time. As a part of the tradition, Turkish women learn to make Turkish coffee at an early age. Especially in the old times when a woman was asked for marriage, potential husband was served coffee and allowed to judge whether the woman was a good match for marriage based upon her ability to make coffee. Some prospective brides used to add salt instead of sugar in order to avoid an unwanted marriage. And if they wanted to end the marriage talks, they used to spill coffee over the guests. Even today, in modern Turkey, some people still keep traditions alive.

“Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love”- Turkish Proverb

There’s a certain way of preparing Turkish coffee. Other than having Turkish coffee beans, you need small coffee pot (copper is recommended) called “cezve” and Turkish coffee cups (thin porcelain cups like espresso cups) called “fincan”. If the beans are not ground, you will also need a Turkish coffee grinder (kahve degirmeni).  

Here are instructions to make Turkish coffee:

   1. Pour in cold water in the coffee pot (One cup of cold water for each cup you would like to serve plus an extra half cup for the pot).
   2. Add a teaspoon full of the ground Turkish coffee per cup in the water. According to the requested taste (sweet, medium or without sugar), you can add sugar.
   3. Heat the pot as slowly as you can. For better taste it’s important to keep the heat slower. Also make sure to prevent overflowing when the water boils.
   4. When the water boils, pour some of the coffee equally between the cups, filling each cup about a quarter to a third of the way. This way you will be able to serve your coffee with a fair share of the foam forming on top of the pot. The foam on Turkish coffee is very important and it is made as the brew sits on the stove without being stirred.
   5. Continue heating until coffee boils again and pour the rest of the coffee between the cups. 

If you are not making your own Turkish coffee but being served, let the host/waiter know in advance how much sugar you want in it. It can either be served as sade (without sugar), az sekerli (a little sugar), orta (medium sugar) or sekerli (sweet).

After drinking lovely Turkish coffee, there’s another tradition waiting for the ones who like fortune reading. This tradition of reading someone’s future from the coffee grounds is called “fal” and very popular in Turkey. They say  “Don’t believe fortune telling but don’t be left without it”. To make the long story short, there are so many reasons for drinking Turkish coffee and it certainly is more than a drink!

And I don’t know about you, but I prefer mine as sweet as love.

Turkish coffee Cezve/Ibrik competition

A competition was held last Sunday at Ishtar Restaurant in Marylebone in UK to find the best Turkish coffee maker was won by Aysin Aydogdu from Twickenham.  Aysin, who is a barista, won the Cezve/Ibrik competition held by the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe.  Coffee makers from Britain, Iran and Uzbekistan were invited to participate.

Aysin, who has represented Britain in the past in this competition, had to impress a five-member jury and to help her entry, put together a harem-like presentation and performance.  26 year-old Aysin will now represent the UK in the Cezve/Ibrik category at the international Caffe Culture competition to be held at London’s Olympia at the end of next month.  She will be competing against representatives from 55 different countries. Other categories include the World Barista Championship, Latte Art, Cup Tasters and Coffee in Good Spirits.

The best way to make Turkish coffee...

City of Coffee: Houston Coffee Culture

By Robb Walsh Published on November 10, 2009 at 1:08pm

Some people drink coffee for the jolt. Some people drink it for the flavor. But coffee is, in fact, part of an ancient social ritual as elaborate as the culture of alcohol.

Ethiopian Coffee

Blue Nile Restaurant - 9400 Richmond, 713-782-6882

At $10 for three people, or $20 dollars for six, the Ethiopian coffee ceremony at Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurant is one of those exotic luxuries we can all afford. The coffee ceremony is an ancient and integral part of Ethiopian culture.

First the frankincense is lit, and then you are given a basket of popcorn — it is customary to enjoy a salty snack with your coffee. Blue Nile buys the best imported Ethiopian coffee and then hand-washes, hand-crushes and roasts it for the coffee ceremony. The beans are brought to your table so you can take in the aroma.

The fresh-roasted coffee is then brewed in a traditional clay pot called a jebena that is balanced on a straw ring. Hot water is added to the beans in three distinct brewings; the first is called abol, the second tona and the third baracka.

It is impolite to stop before the baracka, which is said to bestow a blessing. Luckily, the cups are very small.

Turkish and Bosnian Coffee

Turquoise Grill Brick Oven Bistro - 3701 Kirby Dr., 713-526-3800

Empire Turkish Grill - 12448 Memorial Dr., 713-827-7475

Cafe Pita - 10890 Westheimer, 713-953-7237

There were no bars or taverns in the alcohol-free Ottoman Empire, so the coffeehouse was the center of social life. And it was the Turks who gave us many of our coffeehouse traditions. My friends from Bosnia and Croatia consider it vaguely antisocial to drink coffee at home. You drink coffee in a coffeehouse. But having a Turkish or Bosnian coffee is not like knocking back a quick cup of joe in a diner — it's a social occasion.

The preparation of Turkish-style coffee is very complex. The powdery coffee grounds are slowly cooked with cold water over a gentle heat source in a single-serving copper ewer until the highly desirable foam forms on top and the fine grounds sink to the bottom. There are various methodologies; some call for double or triple heating.

In Turkish coffeehouses, you specify the degree of sweetness, and the sugar is mixed with the coffee during brewing. The four degrees of sweetness are sade (plain; no sugar), az sekerli (little sugar), orta sekerli (medium sugar), and çok sekerli (a lot of sugar). Bosnian coffee is served with sugar cubes. You put them in the bottom of the cup and pour the coffee over the top.

The coffee is often served on ornate copper platters. On each platter, you get a teaspoon and a saucer with a small, white, handle-less cup. There's also a long-handled copper ewer full of foamy hot coffee. The candy called lokum or Turkish delight is a traditional accompaniment.

The unfiltered coffee is hellaciously strong. When you get down to the thick layer of grounds in the bottom of the cup, you turn the cup over onto the saucer if you want your fortune read. Tasseomancy, as the witchcraft of reading fortunes in coffee grounds is known, is my favorite part of the Turkish coffee ritual.

Espresso Bars

Coffee Groundz - 2503 Bagby, 713-874-0082

Tuscany Premium Coffee - 5 E. Greenway Plaza, 713-961-0584

Catalina Coffee Shop - 2201 Washington Ave., 713-861-8448

Empire Cafe - 1732 Westheimer, 713-528-1847

Starbucks

Many, many locations

The first coffeehouse opened in the trading capital of Venice in 1640. It was modeled after the coffeehouses of the Ottoman Empire and served the same sort of Turkish coffee. The beverage was extremely popular, and by 1763 Venice had 218 coffee shops. The Muslim beverage gained in popularity across Italy when Pope Clement VIII declared it acceptable for Christians.

Espresso, which is made by forcing hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee, was invented in Italy around the beginning of the 20th century. Luigi Bezzera of Milan filed a patent for a lever-and-piston-operated espresso machine in 1901. Espresso became the base for other popular coffee drinks, including cappuccino, latte and macchiato.

In 1948, Gaggia introduced a spring-piston espresso machine that was capable of producing higher pressure. Cimbali introduced a hydraulic machine in 1956. In 1960, the first electric pump-operated espresso machine debuted — the FAEMA E61 began the history of the modern espresso bar.

Decent Restaurant Coffee

Houston's Restaurant - (several locations)

Kojak's Cafe - 1912 W. 18th St., 713-426-1800

Crave Cupcakes - 1151 Uptown Park Blvd., 713-622-7283

Kraftsmen Baking - 4100c Montrose, 713-524-3737

McDonald's

(Look for the golden arches)

The average cup of coffee in Houston is a cheap robusta blend brewed weak. For a good cup of coffee, look for some indication on the menu that the restaurant is using a 100 percent arabica blend. Believe it or not, McDonald's uses excellent coffee beans in its exclusive blend — too bad they brew it so weak. Upscale restaurants are your best bet. Many of Houston's top chefs have created their own exclusive blends.

Traditional Turkish Coffeehouses..

On my previous post there was a lovely photo of two men playing backgammon from Oytun Orgul. The photograph was taken in the Tahmis Coffeehouse in Gaziantep , a city in the south-eastern part of Turkey.

I have visited the very same coffeehouse couple years ago as most of the visitors of Gaziantep. Tahmis is a famous place as it was operated as a coffeehouse since 1903 by the members of the same family. During the Ottoman period, the building was known to built to supply income to the nearby lodge used by Mevlevi dervishes.

The first coffeehouses started to open in İstanbul in the 15th century. Along way to Starbucks... And since then they have played an important role in the Turkish culture. With the effect of the Islam while women entertain themselves inside the houses, men usually meet at a coffeehouse for recreation and communication. Traditionally it is a male dominated place.

A traditional coffeehouse is very much look like Tahmis, very basic furniture and a small kitchen for tea or coffee. While customers mostly chat, it is also very common to play backgammon and other card games.

While the modern coffee shops and chains invaded the big streets of the cities, you could still find tradional coffeehouses everywhere. In big cities just look at the side streets or lower and middle income neighbourhoods. In rural areas, they are usually at the center of the town. Although it is a male dominated place, there is no law against women to enter other than the cultural values.

I usually like to spend some time at a coffeehouse, when we are visiting small villages. It is an excellent way to meet with the locals and learn all the gossip. Why coffeehouses are still very popular? Maybe you could find the answer in an old Turkish proverb; '' one cup of coffee is worth 40 years of friendship''

Little cup, big tradition

By Leah Schaffer

It’s easy to get whisked away in the ambiance of a European city. Coming from a country with a history that began relatively recently, it is hard to resist the desire to mold myself into the rich history of a place.

I could tell from the minute I stepped off the bus that I was a foreigner. My clothes were different, my hair was different, my speech was different—everything about me screamed small-town America in the middle of the metropolis of Istanbul, Turkey. I immediately settled into a constant panic, trying to do whatever it took to blend in as best I could—as is the case for many travelers in new and unfamiliar places. It’s the reason why we fly through 13 gigabytes of digital camera memory; it’s why we “ooh” and “aah” over the sugary sweet compliments of shopkeepers and restaurant owners and then flock to whatever authentic goods they have to offer. You can buy a thousand evil eyes and dozens of ceramic plates or, if your pocket allows for it, even a couple of carpets. But if you really want to submerge yourself in the Turkish culture, you need to look no deeper than the bottom of the teeny, tiny Turkish coffee cup.

The first coffee to arrive in Turkey was brought by the Yemeni in 1543 during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish people responded to the new coffee craze by establishing the world’s first coffeehouses a little more than 10 years later. Not unlike the atmosphere of Starbucks, they became places for people to read, play chess, and discuss music, art, and the latest town gossip. The Turkish term keyif, which means “idly enjoying the moment,” is used to describe the mood: imagine lounging around on plush cushions surrounding decorative pools with running water meant to soothe the senses. Walls to the left and right are covered with neat, little coffee cups and other small trinkets familiar to the coffee culture. Directly in front of you is one of the best panoramic views of the city. It may sound very much like posh coffeehouses tucked away in Manhattan or Los Angeles, but this was the making of a civilization in the mid-16th century. Despite being briefly banished after occasionally drawing large crowds prone to vandalism and flighting, coffee has brewed ever since to become an important component of Turkish culture.

At school in the United States, I carry an oversized coffee cup around with me through my day of classes, meetings, and daily routine. I claim it as a necessity and cling to it as a very part of my personality. Having left my coffee cup back at home, I was still determined to experience beans around the world—the aroma, the taste, the strength.

But as I would come to find out, Turkish coffee, though they know it as coffee in the most general sense, is extremely different from what we might expect from an American cup-o-joe from Starbucks. Much like Italian espresso, Turkish coffee arrives steaming in a small cup called a fincan, after being brewed for 15 or 20 minutes over charcoal in a small pot known as a cezve. It’s meant to be sipped. It isn’t just a grab and go sort of thing—it does not appeal to the American way of haste. Instead it has evolved into something which has a purpose that extends fully past the actual body of the brew.

There are several customs that surround the tradition of Turkish coffee. If I were a Turkish young woman of an age appropriate for marriage, my family would begin entertaining the parents of potential suitors.

Though my say in whom I marry may not exist in all cases, I do have a say in how the coffee is prepared for our guests. The parents of my suitor should expect a good cup of coffee as a sign of my potential to be a good wife, mother, and housekeeper. And, if I really don’t like the chump, I make a wickedly bad cup of coffee and convince his parents that their time would be better spent in another home. As the tradition goes, the woman prepares the coffee with a sweetness reflective of her desire for or against the marriage. Extra sweet means, “Let’s do this!” No sugar means, “No, thank you.” And in extreme cases a spoonful of salt might accidently be confused for the sugar, suggesting, “Over my dead body!” But, perhaps my favorite Turkish coffee tradition follows after the coffee is gone, when all that is left is your life’s fortune.

When we non-Turks make coffee, we grind the beans and filter the grounds in a compartment of the coffee maker so that when we pour the brew into our cup, we needn’t worry about anything unwanted floating about as we sip. The preparation of Turkish coffee, however, does not include this separation. So after sipping away the coffee, you are left with a very chalky, silt-like coffee ground substance at the bottom. Don’t be confused (as we all were at first) in thinking that you’re supposed to bottoms-up and deal with the grit on your teeth afterwards! That’s a mistake you definitely won’t want to make—not just because it leaves a black residue and bitter taste in your mouth, but because it leaves you with nothing left to read. Instead, take the saucer from beneath the cup and place it upside down on the top. Spin it in a full circle three times, and then carefully, holding the two tightly together, flip them so that the saucer is now right side up and the cup is upside down. Let it sit for some time.

Gradually, you’ll begin to see a little puddle creep from beneath the rim of the cup. In a little while, take the cup off the saucer and flip it back right side up and hand it to your friend. As the tradition goes, they will read the streaks of coffee grounds in the cup, using any shapes or images that have formed as a way to predict your relationships, your dreams, your shortcomings—anything they want, really (so choose your fortune readers carefully). Then, you’ll read your friend’s coffee grounds, so take revenge through your interpretation, if need be.

In the end, it’s not about the coffee. It’s not about how it’s made, where it comes from, what it’s served in. It’s not really even about the traditions that have developed around it. Apparently, most Turks nowadays actually prefer tea over coffee. But, coffee has remained an important axis around which society and relationships revolve. It’s a sign of hospitality and good wishes. It’s a way to bring people together and make them sit and enjoy each other’s company and conversation—slowly. According to the Turkish saying, “To drink one cup of coffee together guarantees 40 years of friendship.”

It was a Wednesday afternoon around lunchtime, and my friend and I were running around the city trying to complete our errands and grab a bite to eat before we needed to be somewhere else. It took a complete stranger standing in the middle of the walk to offer us a cup of Turkish coffee at his restaurant for us to slow down, stop trying to do everything a tourist is supposed to do in a few days in the city, and enjoy our surroundings. After we had thoroughly sipped our coffee, we reached into our pockets and asked him how much we owed him. He looked at us (with an extremely charming Turkish smirk, I might add) and shook his head. He wanted nothing but for us to have enjoyed ourselves and his coffee. We thanked him, grabbed our books that we had been reading, and sped off, realizing that we had been sitting there for over an hour and were running late.

Posted by shingirmingir

In the old days Turkish girls used to be brought up to make perfect coffee with a perfect amount of foam on the top of the small cup. Turkish coffee is not only aesthetically pleasant, but it tastes heavenly, as well; at least when it is made pure and strong, almost bitter, and with no milk or sugar. Whether or not a girl was considered a catch was defined after the level of her skills for making coffee. Unfortunately my parents never taught me to make perfect Turkish coffee, but my father did teach me to enjoy it; when I was younger he always made me smell the coffee before he put it on. Mmm…smell, he would say and would take a deep breath and fill my lungs with the aroma.