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    Turkish coffee

    Turkish coffee is prepared in a small long-handled pot in which the very fine powder, water and sugar heat together until a foam rises. It is served unfiltered: the grounds settle at the bottom of the cup, and it is the only major method in which nearly everything the powder gave up is drunk.

    THE PROCESS IN MOTION

    Why does Turkish coffee keep its foam and its grounds?

    Start the scene or choose a stage. The animation simplifies the mechanism; what follows gives the details and the available references.

    Everything starts cold

    Very fine powder, sugar and cold water go together into the small pot. Nothing is extracted yet: the powder, the finest on the market, floats and begins to get wet.

    Read the stages without animation
    1. Everything starts coldVery fine powder, sugar and cold water go together into the small pot. Nothing is extracted yet: the powder, the finest on the market, floats and begins to get wet.
    2. The slow heatingThe heat rises gently and the powder soaks up water. The water takes on color, the gases of the bean escape and a foam forms on the surface. No measured temperature has been published.
    3. The riseJust before boiling, the foam climbs into the narrow neck and the pot is taken off the heat. The neck squeezes the foam; a full boil would burst it and make it overflow.
    4. Two or three timesIt is put back on the heat, taken off again, depending on the household: three rises in all at Petros, four in the Turkish recipe, ten or twelve at Thevenot. Each rise prolongs the hot contact and thickens the foam.
    5. SharingIt is poured in turn into each cup so that each gets its share of foam. The powder goes with the liquid: nothing holds it back, neither paper nor cloth.
    6. The restYou wait for the grounds to settle before drinking, and leave the bottom. The large particles fall, the finest stay in suspension and make the thick body.

    To remember: Nothing filters Turkish coffee: the foam comes from the gases of the bean, which the neck squeezes, the thick body from the fines that stay in suspension.

    In history: Thevenot describes the drink in the mid-17th century; UNESCO inscribes it on the intangible heritage list in 2013.

    Read the full article and its sources ↓
    FamilyDecoction
    Also calledcezve, ibrik, briki, Greek coffee, Armenian coffee, Bosnian coffee, Cypriot coffee
    LandmarkOttoman Empire, described by Thevenot in the mid-17th century; UNESCO intangible heritage in 2013

    History

    The traveler Jean de Thevenot describes the motion in the mid-17th century. The Turks pound the roasted bean into a very fine powder and boil the water in a vessel “which they call ibrik,” the small long-handled pot that the Turkish language calls cezve, transcribed jezveh by Ukers. They throw in a generous spoonful of powder for about three cups and pull it sharply off the fire when the liquid rises; after ten or twelve risings, they pour into porcelain cups. Some add clove and cardamom, others sugar (source 1, ch. V and XXXV).

    In 1691, the Italian Angelo Rambaldi describes the pot: wide belly to take the fire, long narrow neck, lid to hold in the “spirituous and volatile particles,” tinned copper. He notes that in Arabia, in Turkey, among travelers and in armies, the powder is put in cold water before boiling (source 2): the cold start is not a modern invention.

    In 1922, Ukers describes the same motion on the roads of Arabia: the coachman roasts his green coffee on a perforated iron plate, pounds it, throws the powder into his brass pot and moves it away from the fire each time the liquid rises to the brim, three times in a row (source 1, ch. XXXV).

    UNESCO inscribes in 2013 the culture and tradition of Turkish coffee on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, at the request of Turkey (file 00645, decision 8.COM 8.28). Its description fixes the current recipe: fine powder, cold water and sugar combined in the pot, slow heating until the desired foam, small cup served with a glass of water (source 3). The same drink is called Armenian, Bosnian, Cypriot or Greek coffee depending on the country (source 4).

    The motion

    The grind is the finest there is: in 1922, the American trade reserves for Turkish coffee the grind “powdered, like flour,” the finest of five classes (source 1, ch. XXV).

    Cold water, sugar and powder are combined in the pot and heated gently (source 3). When the foam rises toward the neck, the pot is taken off the heat before a full boil, then put back on: three times at most at Petros, the Athenian servant described by Edmond About, four times in the Turkish recipe cited by Ukers, where the bottom is tapped between two risings. It is then poured in turn into each cup to share the foam (source 1, ch. XXXV), and you wait for the grounds to settle.

    The settings

    • GrindPowder “like flour,” the finest class on the market in 1922 (source 1, ch. XXV); no quantified particle size distribution found in a standard or a study.
    • DoseThevenot: a generous spoonful of powder for about three cups of water (source 1, ch. V); Turkish recipe cited by Ukers: two teaspoons for two cups (source 1, ch. XXXV).
    • Brew ratioNot documented by a standard; the doses that Rambaldi lists in 1691 do not agree with one another (source 2).
    • TemperatureCold-water start (sources 2 and 3), slow heating, removal just before boiling at each rising; no published temperature measurement found.
    • TimeNot documented in minutes; it is counted in risings: three for the Arab coachman and at Petros, four in the Turkish recipe, ten or twelve at Thevenot (source 1).
    • PressureAtmospheric.

    What it has going for it

    • The equipment fits in one hand: a pot and a heat source, with no filter or consumable, which explains why it was practiced by the roadside as much as in the café (source 1, ch. XXXV).
    • The foam is obtained without any apparatus, by the control of the fire alone, and it is what the whole preparation aims at (source 3).
    • The very fine powder exposes an enormous surface to hot water, so that a small dose gives a dense, full-bodied cup in a very small volume.
    • The serving, small cup and glass of water, carries a ritual of hospitality that UNESCO has recognized as heritage (source 3).

    What is held against it

    • The grounds stay in the cup: you must wait for them to fall and leave the bottom, otherwise you drink mud.
    • The unfiltered drink delivers the coffee's diterpenes: an analysis by Nestlé's research center finds 5.3 mg of cafestol and 5.4 mg of kahweol per cup of Turkish coffee, against negligible amounts for a filter coffee (source 5), and these compounds raise blood cholesterol (source 10).
    • The fines stay in suspension: 2 to 5 g per liter have been measured in a Turkish coffee or a Scandinavian boiled coffee, and they carry diterpenes too (source 6).
    • Nothing is standardized, neither the dose, nor the grind, nor the number of risings: the doses that Rambaldi lists in 1691 already do not agree with one another (source 2).

    What it gives in the cup

    The thick body comes from the fines that stay in suspension (source 6) and from the oils that no paper holds back. Cafestol gives the measure: 5.3 mg per cup in Turkish coffee, barely less than the 7.2 mg of Scandinavian boiled coffee, whereas espresso contains only about 1 mg (source 5). Another study qualifies this ranking: relative to the cafestol in the grounds, a dark-roast Turkish coffee extracts less than a light-roast French press coffee, 2.88% against 6.5% (source 7).

    Roasting weighs heavily: two panels, Turkish and Brazilian, are more sensitive to it than to post-harvest processing (source 9), and a medium-roast Turkish coffee keeps more chlorogenic acids and is more pleasing than a dark one, which is marked by guaiacol, with a phenolic, burnt smell (source 8). The bitterness is corrected by sugar, added during cooking and not in the cup (sources 1 and 3). No measurement of dissolved solids concentration specific to this method was found.

    Anecdotes

    • In the cafés of Constantinople, writes Thevenot, people drink so hot and in such small sips that one hears in the room “a little musical sucking noise” (source 1).
    • In Greece, everyone still said Turkish coffee in the 1960s, recalls the food historian Albert Arouh; after 1974 and the invasion of Cyprus, the drink was renamed Greek coffee, and some go as far as calling it Byzantine coffee, although it reached the region in the 16th century, long after Byzantium (source 4).
    • The Mandabatmaz café of Istanbul takes its name from its coffee, served so thick, it is said, that a buffalo would not sink into it (source 4).
    • The grounds left at the bottom of the empty cup are often used to tell fortunes, notes the UNESCO file (source 3).

    The sources for this sheet

    1. William H. Ukers, All About Coffee, New York, The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922 (local transcription 1922_Ukers_All_About_Coffee_UTF8.txt), ch. V (Thevenot), ch. XXV (grind classes), ch. XXXV (Arabia, Egypt, Greece after About, Turkish recipe after Fellows) · online · primary
    2. Angelo Rambaldi, Ambrosia Arabica (1691), cited in translation by Ukers 1922, ch. XXXVI · online · primary · reading: yes, in Ukers's citation
    3. UNESCO, Turkish coffee culture and tradition, Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, file no. 00645, decision 8.COM 8.28, 2013 · online · primary
    4. Joanna Kakissis, “Don't Call It ‘Turkish’ Coffee, Unless, Of Course, It Is,” NPR, The Salt, April 27, 2013 · online · press
    5. G. Gross, E. Jaccaud, A. C. Huggett, “Analysis of the content of the diterpenes cafestol and kahweol in coffee brews,” Food and Chemical Toxicology, 35 (6), 1997, p. 547-554, doi:10.1016/s0278-6915(96)00123-8 · online · primary · reading: abstract only (PubMed)
    6. R. Urgert, A. G. Schulz, M. B. Katan, “Effects of cafestol and kahweol from coffee grounds on serum lipids and serum liver enzymes in humans,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 61 (1), 1995, p. 149-154, doi:10.1093/ajcn/61.1.149 · online · primary · reading: abstract only (PubMed)
    7. C. Zhang, R. Linforth, I. D. Fisk, “Cafestol extraction yield from different coffee brew mechanisms,” Food Research International, 49 (1), 2012, p. 27-31, doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2012.06.032 · online · primary · reading: abstract only (Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex)
    8. M. Turan Ayseli, H. Kelebek, S. Selli, “Elucidation of aroma-active compounds and chlorogenic acids of Turkish coffee brewed from medium and dark roasted Coffea arabica beans,” Food Chemistry, 338, 2021, 127821, doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2020.127821 · online · primary · reading: abstract only (PubMed)
    9. İ. Elmacı, I. Gök, “Effect of three post-harvest methods and roasting degree on sensory profile of Turkish coffee assessed by Turkish and Brazilian panelists,” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 101 (13), 2021, p. 5368-5377, doi:10.1002/jsfa.11185 · online · primary · reading: abstract only (PubMed)
    10. R. Urgert, M. B. Katan, “The cholesterol-raising factor from coffee beans,” Annual Review of Nutrition, 17, 1997, p. 305-324, doi:10.1146/annurev.nutr.17.1.305 · online · secondary · reading: abstract only (PubMed)
    Elsewhere on the sitePreparationsDecoction: ibrik, cezve, Turkish coffeeThe section of the plate that deals with it.PreparationsSeven centuries of utensilsThe section of the plate that deals with it.CustomsTurkish coffee: the room, the price, the etiquetteAnother page of the site that deals with it.CustomsAmsterdam and Athens: the glass of water and the kaimakiAnother page of the site that deals with it.
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