How to Make Turkish Coffee?

Turkish coffee has been brewed since the 16th century. This brewing method comes with a huge history and cultural traditions and is considered by many people to be the very first coffee brewing technology. Most people think that making coffee in a cezve is a homemade way of brewing and don’t view it as a part of the specialty industry. As a side note, a cezve and an ibrik are different names for the same utensil.

The cezve is a small pot for brewing coffee. It has a specific shape being wide at the bottom and tapering upwards. It allows the water to heat up evenly and cool down more slowly. It is preferable to have a cezve made of copper. The nomads were the first people to appreciate coffee. They brewed it in cooking pots, but they were not comfortable carrying a large pot with them. Over time, the size of the pots decreased and gave rise to the dallah appearance – a metal jug with a handle and a long spout. Along with coffee, dallahs were brought to the Arabian Peninsula. In Istanbul, their form was modified: the neck was narrowed so that coffee would not spill on embers while serving, and the handle was lengthened. This is the way how the cezve appeared. Coffee was popular throughout the Arabian Peninsula, and Europe took up a new trend after the Turks.

The European coffee houses started brewing espresso only in the 20th century, and prior to that, a cezve had been used. In Turkey, coffee is brewed in a traditional forged copper cezve. Inside, it is coated with silver or special food tin because these metals don’t emit harmful substances when heated.

How to Make Coffee in an Ibrik?

Choose finely-ground coffee that looks like dust or powder. The grind should be finer than that you usually use for making pour-over coffee. It’s hard to tell how much ground coffee you need because it depends on the volume of your cezve. To find it out, you need to measure how much water your cezve can hold below the mark where its neck narrows. For example, if the declared volume is 200 ml, then you should use 150 ml of water. The ratio of coffee to water in a cezve is 1:10, so for 150 ml of water, you need 15 g of coffee.

The brewing process is not complicated. Put ground coffee into a cezve and add cold water. The temperature of the water is very important. Some people add warm or hot water similar to the method of brewing coffee in a cup and ignoring the fact that the water requires further heating. Also, don’t fill your cezve with water all the way to the top because during the brewing, the crema will rise, and your coffee may overflow. Pour water guided by the mark of the cezve neck. Place the pot on the stove. When the liquid approaches the boiling point, the crema will start rising. At this moment, take the cezve off the stove immediately and pour it into cups. The total brewing time should be 4-5 minutes. Note that the extraction process proceeds as long as the ground coffee remains in contact with water. A ceramic cezve is inert when heated, so you need to take it off the stove in advance so that the coffee won’t boil over.

Allow the oriental coffee to settle for a couple of minutes to enjoy it without getting the grounds in your mouth. The cezve is a vast field for experimentation. You may add a pinch of your favorite spices in a cezve before adding coffee and continue brewing as instructed. The most popular recipes are coffee with cinnamon, pepper, and milk. You can also add jam, syrup, honey, and elite alcohol. Experiment and find your favorite combination!