Turkish Coffee Anyone?

Turkish coffee is cooked in a meticulous way with particular ingredients which contribute to the typical appearance and taste.

Turkish coffee recipes demands really delicately crunched dark roast coffee bean. This crunch is even more fine-grained than that applied for espresso. Preferred is the dark roast, but it can be substituted with good results by a medium roast.

The Turkish coffee ingredients are the coffee, sugar if desired, cold water and cardamom.
The utensils include a pitcher called an cezwe or ibrik, a narrow topped copper boiling pot. The heating device for Turkish coffee normally is an common cooking stove on which a tray is placed filled up with a layer of sand of around four inches. The heat source shouldn’t be too strong, as the coffee calls for brewing for at least five minutes. While the sand tray is heated by the burner, the coffee pot is placed on the sand allowing to brew slowly. The handleless coffee cups are held with the fingertips or placed in a metal holder with a hand grip. The size of the cups is rather small, approximately the size of an espresso shot.

To prepare the Turkish coffee, you put the needed quantity of COLD water into the ibrik and add one and a half to two teaspoonfuls of coffee. Cardamom is occasionally added before brewing, but it can as well be added to the finished product. Then you add sugar depending on personal taste, but it can be quite sweet by American criteria with up to two teaspoonfuls per cup added. You should use easily dissolved sugar because it’s crucial to stir the coffee and sugar into cold water. The mix is stirred until the coffee drops down to the bottom and the sugar is completely resolved. Remove the stirring spoon and place the pot on the heat source. No additional stirring is necessary, since this would tend to break up the foam.

Heat the coffee just till it starts to boil and then remove the pot from the fire and pour the coffee into the cups. On top, the brew has a thick head of foam.

More ceremonial is the preparation of a sugar syrup, adding together with the coffee and cardamom and heating it. Just before serving, the brew again is brought to a boiling point for a second and occasionally even a third time.

You should sip your Turkish coffee and you should drink some cold water to clean and clear the palate between nips in order to fully value the savor and aroma of the coffee. Do not empty the entire cup as the grounds or sediment remains at the bottom.