Learn how to make Turkish coffee

Detailed instructions on making Turkish coffee

HOW TO MAKE TURKISH COFFEE

You will need to have a Turkish coffee pot, a spoon, sugar and coffee that has been ground to a fine powder. You can get the Turkish coffee in several different ways:

A. Purchase a Turkish Grinder (regular electric grinders with blades spinning at a high speed will NOT do the job) and grind the coffee yourself. We do have these available at our store if you are interested.

B. Do it at at your local grocery store! Yes, that's right. You may not have noticed but the most grinders (99.9%) at your local grocery store in the U.S. have a Turkish coffee setting! Just select the "Turkish Coffee" when you grind your beans.

C. Buy it ready made. We sell it in our store but you can also find it at most Mediterranean stores if you live in a big city.

Preparation

  1. Measure the amount of cold water you will need.
  2. Place your pot of water on the stove and turn the heat to medium-high (just until the water heats up).
  3. Add about 1-2 heaping tea spoons of coffee per demitasse cup. Do not stir it yet. Just let the coffee "float" on the surface because if you stir it now you will cause it to clump up.
  4. Add sugar to taste. Do not stir it yet, because the water needs to be warm before it can dissolve.
  5. When the coffee starts to sinks into the water and the temperature is warm enough to dissolve your sugar, stir it several times and then turn down the heat to low. You should stir it several times, up until it your brew starts to foam. The more you mix it better it will foam ( you can also vigorously move your spoon side to side to encourage foaming action).
  6. When you see the bubble "ring" forming on the surface, turn down the heat a little bit more or move your pot away from the heat source. Pay attention to the bubbles. Smaller the size the better for the foam.
  7. From this point on watch your coffee carefully. The slower you cook it, the better. Do not let the temperature get hot enough to start boiling. (NEVER LET IT BOIL - many instructions on how to make Turkish coffee use the term "boiling" but this is totally inaccurate) Idea here is to let the coffee build a thick froth and that occurs approximately around 158 F or 70 C (i.e., much cooler than the boiling point of water which is 212 F or 100 C at standard pressure).
  8. Keep it at the "foaming" stage as long as you can without letting it come to a boil. You might even gently stir you brew a little bit at this stage. The more froth, the better it will taste. If it gets too hot and starts to "rise" too much then move it away from the heat or just turn it down. Repeat this process until your foam has "raised" and "cooled" at the most couple of times (not 3-4 times like some instructions. Even once is enough). Then pour in to your cups while making sure that each cup has equal amount of foam! If you are serving several cups then you might be better off spooning the foam into each cup.
Drinking
  1. Turkish coffee is always served with a glass of water. You need to drink the water first to clean out your pallet!
  2. Wait about half a minute or so to let the grinds settle to the bottom .
  3. Find a comfortable spot and enjoy your coffee! Make sure to drink it slowly sip by sip.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Turkish coffee & spice grinders

By Amy Scattergood, May 11, 2009
These utterly gorgeous contraptions are brass grinders, made for pepper or other spices, or for the grinding of Turkish coffee. They’re both from Turkey: the smaller of the two I bought at the spice bazaar in Istanbul a few years ago; the larger is from Turkish Coffee World, a fantastic online site that sells Turkish coffee paraphernalia. Turkish Coffee World is run by Istanbul native Mustafa Arat, who operates a one-man company out of his home in the sun-drenched suburban world of swimming pools and occasional palm trees in Corona, California. Arat imports his coffee grinders and pots (cezve) and cups from Turkey, as well as coffee itself from Mehmet Efendi, an Istanbul coffee company which was founded in 1871. The grinders are stunningly pretty; they’re also seemingly indestructable, unlike all the other coffee grinders that have passed through my kitchen to date. You can adjust the grind by turning the screws on the side. The tall grinder grinds very finely, which is how Turkish coffee is ground, like powder. I’ve set the smaller of the two to grind more coarsely, which is how I like my black pepper. I’ve also used it for allspice, cloves and Szechuan peppercorns. If you don’t have one of these, by the way, and are still interested in making Turkish coffee at home (very easy: see Arat’s site for how to do this), you can use any medium roast coffee and simply grind it at the grocery store. It turns out that most of the public coffee grinders at grocery stores have settings for Turkish coffee grind, which I didn’t realize until Arat told me to check. It’s worth getting one of these though, so you don’t have to grind your Tellicherry peppercorns at Trader Joe’s, which I don’t imagine they’d appreciate.

www.AmyScattergood.com

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