Café Turkí

taken for granted all through the Israeli day. I’m amused to see a current advertising campaign – billboards showing that little glass of muddy black liquid  integrated into the graphics of the words “at work,” “at home,” “on vacation.”  It seems superfluous. Nobody needs to be reminded to boil water for Turkish coffee, in any situation.

Sometimes, walking downtown at around 3:00 o’clock, I see the sales girls taking a break in the shop doorways – each one holding a cigarette between her fingers,  sipping languidly from a glass of Turkish coffee.  Go into any workshop – carpenter, metal worker, printer – and you’ll glimpse that same glass on the desk between the receipts and the phone.

Bank clerks and secretaries automatically offer to bring fellow workers coffee as they jump up to get their own caffeine fix. Visit friends in the late afternoon and most likely they’ll offer you cookies and a cup of that same Turkish coffee.

The comfort of the people. Big shots of course have their own little espresso machines installed in their carpeted offices – but they don’t disdain the little glass of black coffee either, if it’s offered.

Myself, I drink one cup a day, at breakfast, and that with milk, which isn’t traditional but is the way I like it.

Turkish coffee is traditionally made in a  finjan – a special pot with a long handle, wider at the bottom so that most of the grounds stay behind when you pour the coffee out. In the Middle East, they’re for sale everywhere. But if you don’t have a finjan, you can make it in any small pot.

It can be coffee from any bean you like. The important thing is that it be finely ground. A coarse grind won’t give you the aroma and flavor of the real thing.

You’ll often smell cardamom in the Turkish coffee as you go past someone’s steaming cup. I’m not fond of it cardamom in coffee myself, but many like it very much. I’m including the spice in the recipe for you to use at your own discretion.

Turkish Coffee

Ingredients:

1 cup  cold water
1 heaping teaspoon extra finely ground coffee – experiment with less or more, according to taste
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoons sugar

Method:

1. Bring water and sugar to a boil in the pot.
2. Remove from heat and add coffee and cardamom.
3. Return pot to the heat and allow the coffee to come to a boil, while stirring. Remove from the heat when the coffee foams.
4. Pour the coffee into a cup or glass. Drink immediately; the finest aroma is considered to be in the head of froth.