When people hear I grew up in Turkey, they often ask about Turkish coffee. It's either because they love it and want to learn how to make it or are concerned that enjoying a thick, espresso-like drink will make it difficult to sleep if they mistakenly take a sip before bedtime.
Either way, it's always a fun conversation starter.
Turkey is known as the heart of the world where ancient traditions of diverse people blend with the modern, and learning to correctly prepare coffee in the Turkish style will bring a bit of this classic custom into your own home.
But before I tell you about how to make Turkish coffee, I think it's important to start by explaining the tradition behind it: In my opinion, learning to make Turkish coffee starts from understanding its terminology and customs.
In Turkey, when you are visiting someone's home, the first question isn’t if you want to drink Turkish coffee, but rather how you would like it be prepared. More specifically, your host is asking for your sweetness preference. To answer the question, you may say “sade” to indicate no sugar, “az seker” for very little sugar, “orta” for 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar, or “sekerli” for 3 to 4 teaspoons of sugar. Once your request is made, the person preparing the coffee has the responsibility to remember and make each cup accordingly.
Turkish coffee is always served with water: A sip of water will allow the person to clear his or her palate before drinking coffee, making for the best enjoyment. Additionally, most people serve the coffee with a small, sweet treat like Turkish delights, chocolate, or candy.
When serving coffee, it's important to start with the eldest guest in the room as a sign of respect, and it's considered discourteous not to do so. Last but not least, since Turkish coffee is much denser than filtered coffee, it's not customary to drink more than one cup.
| 3 | cups (Turkish coffee cup-sized cups) cold filtered water |
| 2 1/2 | tablespoons ground Turkish coffee |
| Sugar, as desired |
| 3 | cups (Turkish coffee cup-sized cups) cold filtered water |
| 2 1/2 | tablespoons ground Turkish coffee |
| Sugar, as desired |
To make Turkish coffee, you'll need filtered water, a cezve (a special wide-bottomed pot, usually made of copper), Turkish coffee cups (which are usually small in size and sold together with the cezve), sugar, and Turkish coffee.
Turkish coffee is much more finely ground than regular coffee. Even though you can grind it yourself from beans, nowadays you can find ground Turkish coffee in most Middle Eastern or Mediterranean supermarkets.
Always use cold, filtered water. To measure the amount of water for each cup, use the coffee cup you are going to serve it in as the measuring vessel. My rule of thumb is to use a volume of water 1 1/2 times the volume of the coffee cup. (Once again, the “cup” measurement refers to the coffee cup that you are going to serve the coffee in, rather than a standard measuring cup.)
For each person you're serving, use 1 heaping tablespoon of ground coffee (as long as you're using Turkish coffee cups 1 heaping tablespoon Turkish coffee should be fine).
If you're preparing the coffee with sugar, add it in at the very beginning, stirring it into the ground coffee and the water until combined. If one or more of the guests prefers no sugar, however, prepare and pour that cup first. After returning the coffee pot to the heat, then begin the sugar additions to suit the remaining guests.
Slowly bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. This will take 3 to 4 minutes, so keep a close eye on it.
As the coffee warms, dark foam will build. It is customary and important to serve Turkish coffee with foam on top. When the mixture is close to a boil, use a teaspoon to transfer some of the foam into each Turkish coffee cup. Return the coffee pot to the stovetop. As coffee comes to a boil, pour half of the coffee into the cups, over the foam.
Return the coffee pot to the stovetop and boil the remaining coffee for an additional 10 to 15 seconds, then divide it into the cups to fill them to the rims.
Serve the coffee with a glass of water and a Turkish delight, chocolate, or candy.
What are your coffee traditions? Tell us about them in the comments!
Written by: Aysegul Sanford
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30 Comments
allow me to make one more comment which accompanies Turkish coffee almost as a side ingredient:
'bir fincan kahvenin kirk yillik hatiri vardir' is a saying in Turkish meaning ' a cup of (Turkish) coffee has a memory for 40 years'; nearest i could translate.
this saying not only stems from its beans being precious since, apparently the best beans use to come from Yemen in the old times, made it expensive and a rare ingredient; time consuming roasting and grounding was done at home; cooking -as explained, not only took some time but demanded all the attention, care and love; last but not least, time shared over a cup of Turkish coffee was a true expression of honouring the guests with quality time spend with them.
in other words Turkish coffee preparation and drinking is a ritual; it is not a drink to be enjoyed while on the go. it is a true slow food delight.
enjoy your cup of Turkish coffee!
I am in the process of making a video for this and will publish it on my blog in April. My goal is to answer all these questions in a short video.
To answer your question: Yes, they would settle when the coffee is poured into the coffee pot. However, this is normal as Turkish coffee is much thicker than any other coffee that I know. Also, the thickness depends on the amount of coffee you used.
I hope this helps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grole
Turkish coffee needs no filtering as the coffee is very thin. Yes, it will dissolve in the water like instant coffee. However, unlike instant coffee (like Nescafe), Turkish coffee is much thicker. For the lack of a better word, it is muddier than instant coffee. Does this make sense?
I am here if you have any other questions.
Thanks for letting me know.
I can totally relate to that. Turkish coffee tastes better when you share with friends. :)
For your question about double/triple boiling... I usually only double boil to make sure that the coffee is fully cooked/boiled. Even though I do not know why anyone would triple boil it, I am guessing that it is because they want to make sure that the coffee is really hot and the sugar is fully dissolved in it.
I hope this helps. :)
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