November 29, 2008

How to Prepare Turkish Coffee

Turkish Coffee Preparation

You can prepare your Turkish coffee in two main ways:
  • By using a pot (classical way)
  • By using an automatic-machine (machine way)

1) Classical Way

It takes just 3 easy steps:

1) Grinding coffee

The first thing you need is coffee :) Traditionally, you should start by grinding coffee beans. Traditionally, Turkish coffee is made from Arabica beans. However, nowadays, Brazilian beans ara widely used. A dark roast is preferable but also a medium roast coffee will yield a strong aroma and flavour.


You can grind coffee with a mortar (the original method) or a mill (today's method). In the end, your coffee should be very powdery. Remember, Turkish coffee is the finest grind of coffee used in any style of coffee making. To have a faster start, you can skip this step by buying ground and roasted Turkish coffee. If you cannot find coffee specifically labeled as "Turkish coffee", then you may try a coffee type you enjoy. The main point is to grind it as fine as possible. For instance, you can use Starbucks Breakfast Blend that can be found easily.
2) Putting ingredients together

You can use your fincan (coffee cup) as a measuring cup. Just pour one cup of cold drinking water in cezve (pot) for per cup of coffee. Add two teaspoons of coffee (5 g) and two teaspoons of sugar (if desired) per cup.

3) Heating

Blend the coffee and sugar with teaspoon over a low flame. Heat the pot as slowly as you can. If you loose your attention, it can easily overflow, so please be very careful. If you take your eye off during the brewing process, then it can overflow in a blink of the eye :-) But, don't be afraid, once you get used to it is really very easy to take thins under your control.

When the coffee almost boils, pour some of the coffee into the coffee cup to get the foam. If you prepare for more than one cup, then pour it equally among the cups. Allow the remaining coffee to brew a while longer before adding it to the cups. This almost boil-pour some-and almost boil again method is critical to have good quality foam. You can repeat this process 2 or 3 times. It depends on your patience :) The rule of thumb is 3 times. But, there are many different recipes with different repeat numbers.

As you noticed, Turkish style does not have a filtering process at any time. So, it is better to wait for a while (between 30 seconds to a minute) before drinking your coffee to let the coffee grounds settle at the bottom of the cup. The coffee grounds sink to the bottom should not be consumed. Also, as you will see majority of the grounds are left in the cezve.

2) Machine Way

It is really so fast and practical, also the coffee prepared by the machine really tastes good. A  white goods producer, Arcelik, designed the Turkish coffee machine. The only thing you should do is to put coffee, water and sugar (if desired) into machine's special pot and then to press the only button the machine has. Your delicious coffee will be ready within one minute.
A guide to use Automatic Turkish coffee machine

How you can buy Turkish coffee machine?


Now you can enjoy your coffee... :-) Afiyet Olsun! (Bon Appetite!)

1 comment:

Jonathan Kandell said...

I am having trouble getting foam when I make one cup. I am using preground "Boznian" coffee in a 2 cup (small) pot. The "crust" on top starts to bubble around edges, and slowly gets "eaten" but no foam. I am using low heat.
Miraculously, when I make two cups the foam is there. The water comes just up to the neck.
1) Is this normal that 2 cups is easier and 1 cup doesn't work?
2) When I scoop off the foam it seems I scoop mostly grounds. Should I wait until the "crust" totally melts into the coffee or will the foam go down with it?