How to prepare Turkish coffee?

Coffee was first made into a drink in Turkey during the Ottoman Empire, where it was usually drunk with herbs for extra flavour.

Turkish coffee is a method of brewing that’s popular across North Africa, Arabia and the Middle East.

Turkish coffee is brewed the finely ground coffee in small, long handled, tin-lined brass pots. The coffee beans are always freshly roasted and then pounded or ground to a very fine powder. When the boiling coffee it is important not to boil for too long, as the resulting brew will be bitter.

As the coffee is sweetened during the preparation, guests are always asked whether they would like theirs sweet medium, or plain, hence the need for several coffee pots in each household.
How to prepare Turkish coffee?

Turkish coffee

In the Middle East, two types of coffee are made: Arabic coffee, which is drunk solely in Arab communities, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and by the Bedouin; and Turkish coffee, which is fashionable in the cities, especially in the ones influenced by Ottoman Empire and in Turkey.

Turkish coffee is a dense black coffee in tiny cups, the flavor of freshly ground coffee beans lingering in one’s mouth. It is a method of brewing that is popular across North Africa, Arabia and the Middle East. Turkish coffee is brewed in small, long handled tin-lined brass pits (called kanaka, rakwi or ibrik in Arabic and cezve in Turkish).

Traditionally, Turkish coffee is heavily sweetened and spiced with cardamom, but depending on the coffee chosen, a well made pot can show a lot of varietal characteristics and neither sugar nor cardamom is necessary to enjoy it.

Turkish coffee is a concentrated and potent drink, so the recommended serving should be approximately 3 fluid ounces (92 ml).
Turkish coffee

The first coffee house in Turkey

The drink was first common in Yemen. Tradition has it that the very first known coffee shop was established in Constantinople around the year of 1475.

It was named Kiv Han, and immediately became a popular meeting place. In 1554 two coffee houses open there and people came pouring in to socialize, listen to the music, play games and of course drink.

Some often called these places in Turkey the ‘school of the wise’, because they could learn so much by just visiting the coffee house and listening to conversations.

The Constantinople coffee house was a place for powerful elders, where younger men might be granted patronage and learn the political strategies of their mentors.

Turkish coffee was served strong, black and unfiltered. At that time a Turkish woman could divorce her husband if he could not give her enough coffee.

From there, the habit spread to Constantinople’s frequent trading partner, Venice, from where it disseminated to England and Germany.

In 1683 Turkish invaders brought their favorite drink with them when they swept into Vienna and the rest was history.

By the end of the Ottoman Empire, during the period of modernization, the older coffeehouse began to seem old-fashioned, ‘stagnant, sullied place’ where the older men played cards, while European-style café’s attracted those seeking the cachet of modernity.
The first coffee house in Turkey