Turkish coffee

Turkish coffee is a method of preparing unfiltered coffee. History: The earliest evidence of coffee drinking comes from 15th-century Yemen. By the late 15th century and early 16th century, coffee had spread to Cairo and Mecca. It was prohibited in Ottoman Turkey under an edict by the Sultan Murad IV. In the 1640s, the Ottoman Bosnian chronicler İbrahim Peçevi reported the opening of the first coffeehouse in Istanbul. “Until the year 962 (sc. AH, that is 1554-55), in the High, God-Guarded city of Istanbul, as well as in Ottoman lands generally, coffee and coffeehouses did not exist. About that year, a fellow called Hâkem (Hakam) from Aleppo and a wag called Şems (Shams) from Damascus, came to the city: they each opened a large shop in the district called Tahtakale, and began to purvey coffee.” Preparation: Turkish coffee is made by boiling the ground coffee beans (and is not made, for example, by filtering or percolation). Its preparation is done by a method that has two characteristic features. First, if sugar is to be added to the coffee, it is done at the start of the boiling, not after. Second, the boiling is done as slowly as possible, without letting the water get to a state beyond that of simmering. When the grounds begin to froth, about one-third of the coffee is distributed to the various individual cups, after which the remaining two-thirds is returned to the fire. After the coffee froths a second time, the process is completed and the remaining coffee is distributed to the individual cups. Name and variants: The word 'coffee' comes from the Arabic word قهوة qahwah. The importance of coffee in Turkish culture is evident in the words 'breakfast', kahvaltı, whose literal meaning is "before coffee" (kahve 'coffee' + altı 'under/before') and 'brown', kahverengi, whose literal meaning is, "the color of coffee". The word for "coffeeshop" in Modern Standard Arabic is مقهى (maqha, literally meaning "place of coffee", plural, مقاهي maqahi(n)), but the more common term in colloquial Arabic is simply قهوة (qahwa), meaning "coffee" in much the same way as many Romance languages use café for both. Europe: In the 17th century, coffee appeared for the first time in Europe outside the Ottoman Empire, and coffeehouses were established and quickly became popular. The first coffeehouses in Western Europe appeared in Venice, as a result of the traffic between La Serenissima and the Ottomans; the very first one is recorded in 1645. The first coffeehouse in England was set up in Oxford in 1650 by a Jewish man named Jacob in the building now known as "The Grand Cafe". A plaque on the wall still commemorates this and the Cafe is now a trendy cocktail bar. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses in England. The first coffeehouse in Vienna was opened by the Johannes Theodat in 1685. In 1672 named Pascal established the first coffee stall in Paris. Albania: In Albania, it is called Turkish coffee or Ottoman coffee (Albanian: kafe turke). It is very popular in Albania. Bosnia and Herzegovina: In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkish coffee is also called "Bosnian coffee" (Bosnian: bosanska kahva), which is made slightly differently from its Turkish counterpart. Another difference from the Turkish preparation is that when the water reaches its boiling point, a small amount is saved aside for later, usually in a coffee cup. Then, the coffee is added to the pot (džezva), and the remaining water in the cup is added to the pot. Everything is put back on the heat source to reach its boiling point again, which only takes a couple of seconds since the coffee is already very hot. Coffee drinking in Bosnia is a traditional daily custom and plays an important role during social gatherings. Czech Republic and Slovakia: A beverage called "turecká káva" or "turek" is also very popular in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, even if more sophisticated forms of coffee preparation (such as espresso) have become widespread in the last few decades, decreasing the popularity of turek. Cafés usually do not serve turek any more, in contrast to pubs and kiosks, but turek is still often served in households. The Czech and Slovak form of Turkish coffee is different from Turkish coffee in Turkey, the Arab world or Balkan countries, since cezve is not used. It is in fact the simplest possible method to make coffee: ground coffee is poured with boiling or almost boiling water. The weight of coffee and the volume of water depend only on the taste of the consumer. In recent years, genuine Turkish coffee made in a cezve (džezva in Czech) has also appeared, but Turkish coffee is still understood, in most cases, as described above. Greece: In Greece, Turkish coffee was formerly referred to simply as τούρκικος 'Turkish'. But political tensions with Turkey in the 1960s led to the political euphemism ελληνικός καφές 'Greek coffee', which became even more popular after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974: "... Greek–Turkish relations at all levels became strained, τούρκικος καφές Turkish coffee became ελληνικός καφές Greek coffee by substitution of one Greek word for another while leaving the Arabic loan-word, for which there is no Greek equivalent, unchanged." Serbia: In Serbia, Turkish coffee is also called "domestic coffee" (Serbian: домаћа кафа / domaća kafa) or 'coffee' (кафа / kafa). It is traditional drink of Serbs. Especially strong coffee (without sugar and milk) is often referred to as 'Turkish coffee' (турска кафа / turska kafa) or 'black coffee' (црна кафа / crna kafa). Customs- Turkish weddings: As well as being an everyday beverage, Turkish coffee is also a part of the traditional Turkish wedding custom. As a prologue to marriage, the bridegroom's parents (in the lack of his father, his mother and an elderly member of his family) must visit the young girl's family to ask the hand of the bride-to-be and the blessings of her parents upon the upcoming marriage. During this meeting, the bride-to-be must prepare and serve Turkish coffee to the guests. For the groom's coffee, the bride-to-be sometimes uses salt instead of sugar to gauge his character. If the bridegroom drinks his coffee without any sign of displeasure, the bride-to-be assumes that the groom is good-tempered and patient. As the groom already comes as the demanding party to the girl's house, in fact it is the boy who is passing an exam and etiquette requires him to receive with all smiles this particular present from the girl, although in some parts of the country this may be considered as a lack of desire on the part of the girl for marriage with that candidate. Fortune-telling: Superstition says the grounds left after drinking Turkish coffee can be used for fortune-telling. The cup is commonly turned over into the saucer to cool, and it is believed by some that the patterns of the coffee grounds can be used for a method of fortune telling known as tasseography (Turkish: kahve falı, Greek: καφεμαντεία, kafemanteia, Arabic: قراءة الفنجان‎‎, qira'at al-fenjaan, German: Kaffesatzlesen, Serbian: гледање у шољу / gledanje u šolju), or tasseomancy.