How Do You Make Turkish Coffee?

There are many ways to make and enjoy coffee and especially healthy organic coffee. One of these is Turkish coffee. What is and how to you make Turkish coffee? Turkish coffee is an entirely different way to make coffee from how it is done in coffee houses in North America and is, basically, how folks make coffee in Turkey. Read on to learn how to make Turkish coffee.

Turkish Coffee

Turkish coffee is a method of preparing coffee common not only in the country of Turkey but across the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus, Balkans and into Eastern Europe.

Making Turkish Coffee

 

 

Ibrik for Turkish Coffee

Ibrik for Turkish Coffee

 

 

Here is the short and sweet approach to making Turkish coffee.

  • When making coffee Turkish style grind the coffee beans even finer than you would for making espresso.
  • Make Turkish coffee in a small pot with a cup of water
  • A small sauce pan will do although Turks use an ibrik (see image)
  • Add sugar
    • Plain: no sugar
    • Little sugar: add half a level teaspoon to the coffee
    • Medium: add a level teaspoon to the coffee
    • A lot of sugar: add two level teaspoons to the coffee
  • Bring the water with sugar to a boil and remove from heat
  • Add coffee and stir until coffee sinks
    • Some add a pod of cardamom as well (optional)
  • Heat again slowly until coffee boils and foam appears on the top
    • So not stir as this disturbs the foam
    • Do not boil too long as prolonged boiling gives the coffee a burnt taste
    • Remove from heat briefly and then heat again
    • Repeat one more time
  • Pour coffee directly from the ibrik or your sauce pan into demitasse cups similar to what you would use for espresso
  • Ideal Turkish coffee has a lot of thick foam (think of Cuban coffee) and the person who gets the cup with the most foam has the best coffee.

History of Turkish Coffee

Coffee was discovered and used as a drink in the middle of the 14th century. It was drunk in Ethiopia and then on the Arabian Peninsula. In the 16th century the Ottoman Empire ruled Turkey and much of the Middle East including the Arabian Peninsula. The governor of Yemen brought coffee with him on his return to Istanbul. The Turkish coffee method originated in the Ottoman Palace. Beans were roasted over a fire, finely ground and cooked slowly in water on the ashes of the fire. This method of making coffee spread along with the popularity of coffee across all of the Ottoman Empire. As the size and influence of the Ottoman Empire waned aspects of its culture remained including the making of Turkish coffee. How to make Turkish coffee varies across the length and breadth of the old empire but the recipe above is pretty close to how coffee is made and enjoyed from Morocco to Iraq and Yemen to Bucharest.

Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire




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