Turkish Coffee: Centering in the Moment
I’ve been experimenting with Turkish-style coffee. I first had it more than two decades ago at a small Turkish cafe in a strip mall in…
I’ve been experimenting with Turkish-style coffee. I first had it more than two decades ago at a small Turkish cafe in a strip mall in Montgomery, N.J., with a colleague. I wasn’t sure what to make of it then. It was both sweet and bitter, and there was a sediment at the bottom of the cup, but there was something there that stayed with me.
It was years later when I had the chance to try it again. I was still a novice. I didn’t think realize that I had to ask them to make it without the sugar — sugar is mixed into the coffee before brewing. It was sweet, but the strength of the coffee pierced the sweetness, and I could see what made it such an important staple of that part of the world.
The best Arabic coffee around here can be found at Kapadokya Mediterranean Grill on Route 1 in Monmouth Junction (where the Burrito Royale used to be). There are other places that make great Arabic coffee — Falafels and More on Route 27 makes a fantastic Lebanese version. Kapadokya is a Turkish restaurant, so you can call what they serve authentic Turkish coffee. It has that requisite bitterness — I always remember to ask for it without sugar — and a thick froth at the top that is like the foamy head on a beer. It is part of the experience and signals its authenticity.
When I drink it, I am reminded of the poem by Naomi Shahib Nye, “Arabic Coffee,” (http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/nyepoems2.html ) that underscores the importance that coffee has in the various cultures of the Mediterranean region. I’ve taught it several times — it is the kind of poem that draws the reader into a world, let’s The, taste it and smell it. The coffee in the poem is an emotional thread holding together family and tradition. Papa makes the coffee, black and “thick in the bottom,” the kids gathering around, imploring him to “tell again how the years willq gather / in small white cups, / how luck lives in a spot of grounds.”
The coffee turns the table where the family has come to drink into a unifying space: “the place where men and women / break off from one another / was not present in that room.” All the hard moments of life, the disappointments, the “fire swallowing olive-wood beads / at the warehouse, and the dreams / tucked like pocket handkerchiefs / into each day,” are present, a part of the raucous family life.
“The coffee was / the center of the flower.” The coffee was family and faith itself — and more. There is a reverence for the ritual in Nye’s poem that echoes in the world, so that when I sip the dark bitter brew. “There is this, / and there is more.”
More. My experience with Turkish-style coffee — I can’t claim what I’ve been attempting to brew is Turkish or Arabic — is more solitary. I’m the only coffee drinker in our house, and I’m the only one of my extended family that likes exceptionally strong coffee.
But there is still something ritualistic, and ultimately soothing, about the process of making Turkish coffee. I started experimenting a few months ago at home using recipes I found online. The results have been mixed — I can’t consistently get the foamy head that is so necessary to the experience, but the taste is there, and I’m hopeful that I’ll get right.
I start with cardamom, an Indian spice with an earthy aroma that seeps into coffee. spruce.com says, “Cardamom has a strong, pungent flavor and aroma, with hints of lemon, mint, and smoke.“ (https://www.thespruce.com/all-about-cardamom-995599)
I mix about an eighth of a teaspoon in with a tablespoon of finely ground coffee (usually espresso blend, unless I can find Turkish blend) in a copper Ibrik with a demitasse-cup’s worth of water.
I then heat over a low flame until it foams. When it foams, I remove it from the heat. I scoop off some of the foam into the demitasse cup, and then return it to the heat. I simmer until it boils again, remove from heat, and then simmer one last time.
It has to be watched, so I have to remain present, stay in the process or it’ll boil over, as it did tonight. There is a discipline required that I don’t always possess — how many writing assignments and projects remain half finished? The brewing process functions for me like a deadline does, whether it is a deadline for grading or reporting. It focuses the mind. Forces me to act, to follow through.
It is spiritual, in a way, though I hate to call it that because it carries a new-agey implication, and because I’m not Arabic, not Turkish, and I don’t have a real cultural connection. I just like the coffee and the focus the brewing process affords me.