Millions of coffee lovers all around the globe have incorporated Turkish coffee into their daily routine and they enjoy this beautiful beverage anytime they need the boost of a stimulating drink.
Maybe you’ve never tried Turkish coffee before or maybe you’re already an avid drinker who just wants to know the best method to brew a proper cup of Turkish coffee.
There’s a bunch of guides out there on how to make Turkish coffee. But I think most of them are just haphazardly produced works that are not exactly designed well enough to serve your needs.
Most of them will give you a cup of Turkish coffee that tastes terrible and has no froth on top at all.
The best Turkish coffee should satisfy all of your senses. It should smell and taste like heaven, it should be frothy and reasonably thick and it must be served in the right manner to complete your Turkish coffee experience in style.
As a Turkish coffee lover who has drunk and prepared countless cups of Turkish coffee, I can easily tell a good cup of Turkish coffee from a bad one.
And as the writer of this blog, I consider it my mission to help you have the best Turkish coffee experience possible.
So if you’re ready to learn everything that you need to know about preparing and serving a nice cup of Turkish coffee, let’s dive in!
Tools and Ingredients You Need for Turkish Coffee
In order to make Turkish coffee, first you’re going to need a couple of ingredients.
- A Turkish coffee pot
- Extra finely ground coffee
- A Turkish coffee cup
- A wooden or silicone spoon (“why can’t I use a metal spoon?“)
- And water
- Optionally, you can add sweeteners and additives such as sugar, mastic gum, spices and so on…
Turkish Coffee Making Detailed Instructions
Step #1 Measure the amount of water using your Turkish coffee cup. If you blindly add water you can end up with too little or too much water. So, take your Turkish coffee cup, fill it with water and transfer the water into the Turkish coffee pot.
Step #2 Measure 1 tablespoon of extra finely ground coffee. If you want to be more precise you can use a sensitive kitchen scale to measure 6 grams of coffee per cup. Then, add this into your Turkish coffee pot as well. If you want to add sweeteners, this is the time to do so.
Step #3 Put the Turkish coffee pot on the stove and start brewing on low heat. Mix all the ingredients using your wooden or silicone spoon. After mixing, slightly increase the heat to reduce contact time and avoid overextracting your Turkish coffee.
Step #4 After a while (about 2-3 minutes) you should see some bubbles on top. Now get ready to distribute the foam. When bubbles start increasing and boiling over, get your cup closer while tilting your Turkish coffee pot and transfer the foam into the cup.
Step #5 Now that you’ve transferred the first foam, get your pot close to heat again and make it bubble up again. If you’re making two cups of Turkish coffee put this foam into the second cup. And if you’re making more than two cups you can repeat this process several times until all cups have foam in them.
Step #6 On the last (for one and two cups of Turkish coffee, it means the third) time you let the coffee bubble up, put the whole coffee into your cup.
Now, your Turkish coffee is ready to drink. Just make sure to wait for a minute for the grounds to settle and enjoy it.
How to Serve Turkish Coffee
Now that you’ve learned to prepare Turkish coffee properly, here comes the fun part; enjoying it!
The most important thing to remember when drinking Turkish coffee is that you should be in a good headspace. Preferably be in the good company of your friends and loved ones and share this spectacular experience together.
As a rule of thumb Turkish coffee should always be served with a cup of water and a traditional snack such as “lokum” (Turkish delight) or cookies.
For some reason if you can’t eat sweets or don’t like them, you can always serve Turkish coffee with dried or fresh fruits as well.
After enjoying your Turkish coffee make sure to “close the cup” and indulge in some fortune telling as well. I’ll be writing more on that later.
Common Questions and Answers
Why is Turkish coffee not foaming?
One very common problem many people who try to make Turkish coffee for the first time run into is their Turkish coffee not foaming like it should. Since a good Turkish coffee is judged by its foam, its an important question that requires to be answered.
There might be many reasons why this happens. But if you follow the instuctions on this post you should end up with a frothy and delicious Turkish coffee that would satisfy any coffee lover.
Most of the time, the foam does actually form when brewing but many people have trouble transferring it into the cup.
So make sure to follow steps 4 to 6 very carefully and your Turkish coffee will foam like it should.
Why is Turkish coffee bitter?
One other common question about Turkish coffee is about its taste. Most of the time the reason why Turkish coffee tastes bitter is because it’s improperly brewed.
Although there is some inherent jolting bitterness in the taste of Turkish coffee (or any type of coffee really) it shouldn’t taste burnt or smoky.
So, if you’ve followed my instructions but still got a cup of coffee that’s more bitter than you want, make sure that you’re increasing the heat slightly after mixing the ingredients as instructed on the third step.
This way you’ll decrease the contact time and avoid overextracted Turkish coffee that tastes bitter.
Why is Turkish coffee served with water?
Traditionally Turkish coffee is served with water and many people who don’t know the reason why wonder why a cup of water should accompany your Turkish coffee.
There are many rumors as to why Turkish coffee is served with water and I’m sure that you’ve never heard of them.
According to one of these rumors, back in the old days when Turkish coffee was first starting to get popular in Ottoman Empire, people would serve their guests Turkish coffee with a cup of water to gauge whether they’re hungry or not without directly asking.
If the guest had the water before the coffee, it meant that they were hungry and the host would immediately serve them a meal to show their hospitality. If however, the guest took a sip from the coffee without drinking water, it would mean that they just came for some chit-chat.
According to another rumor Ottoman Emperors would use the water to see if their coffee was poisoned or not.
In the history, it was fairly common for rulers to be poisoned and because of that Ottoman Sultans had people tasting their food before them to make sure that there was no poison in it.
But because Turkish coffee already comes in a very small portion, it couldn’t be put through the same process and had to be tasted with a different method.
So in order to understand if there was any poison in the coffee, the Sultan would dip his finger first in the coffee and then in the water. Looking at how coffee gets dispersed in the water they could tell whether it was poisoned or not.
But nowadays, the reason why Turkish coffee is served with water is a much simpler one. You simply have the water before and after drinking Turkish coffee to cleanse your palate.
When to drink Turkish coffee?
Unlike other types of coffee which you usually have when you need that quick kick of caffeine, Turkish coffee is unique a type of coffee that’s enjoyed in a leisurely manner.
Traditionally Turkish coffee is drunk right after breakfast. And even the word for breakfast in Turkish, “kahvaltı” comes from the root “kahve-altı” which means “under coffee”. And it represents how the meal you have before coffee acts as a cushion for it in your stomach.
But it’s quite common to drink Turkish coffee any time of the day you want as long as you know your limits.
So this is everything you need to know about preparing and serving a cup of delicious Turkish coffee. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
If you’ve found this post helpful or interesting, please don’t forget to share it on the social media. Help spread the enjoyment that Turkish coffee brings! 😉
