Turkish coffee is generally known by coffee lovers to be the type of coffee with the finest grounds. If you ask me and many people who have tried it, Turkish coffee is also the type of coffee with the finest flavor.

If you have any questions about Turkish coffee grind size, whether you need to grind it or if you can just buy it pre-ground, how to grind it and why we even grind coffee in the first place, you’ve found the right blog post.

Turkish coffee is made by boiling coffee grounds for 2-3 minutes. Because of the contact time and the simplicity of this method, it requires an extra fine grind that’s even finer than Espresso or moka pot coffee.

Let’s explore your questions regarding coffee grinding and the ideal Turkish coffee grind size in great detail.

Why do we need to grind coffee?

What makes coffee the delicious tasting beverage with a heavenly smell that enriches our mornings is the processes that were developed over hundreds of years.

If you saw coffee “fruit” in the wild you probably wouldn’t even be able to recognize it. It’s a red fruit that almost looks like a berry and tastes nothing like the coffee that we know of.

In order to make it into a cup of “java”, coffee fruits are picked, their seeds (coffee beans) are taken out and dried. And then coffee beans’ skins are peeled, they are roasted, ground up and finally turned into a cup of coffee in different ways depending on the method used.

Since coffee beans are actually seeds of a plant, when we taste coffee we taste the sugars, proteins, oils and other compounds in coffee beans that are actually designed to feed the embryo. And best ways to reach these is by grinding coffee beans.

Grinding increases the surface area of the coffee beans, making it easier for hot water to get to them and extract flavors.

If you were to use whole coffee beans to make a cup of coffee, it would probably taste more like hot water with no coffee in it because water wouldn’t be able to reach into the coffee bean and help release its flavors.

As a rule of thumb the finer your grind size, the easier and faster it is to extract flavors.

What Grind Size Different Types of Coffee Need

When the grind size of coffee gets finer and finer, extraction rate increases due to increased total surface area.

If contact time is shorter, a finer ground is needed because otherwise it would be under-extracted and taste sour. Likewise if contact time is long, a coarse ground is necessary for proper extraction and to avoid ending up with over-extracted coffee that tastes bitter.

Because of this, with different brewing methods different grind sizes are required.

• Cold brew needs and extra coarse grind for its extra long brewing time that’s around 12 to 24 hours.
• French press uses coarse coffee grounds. A simple rule to follow is if coffee grounds can pass through the filter when you press it, you must try a more coarse grind.
• Chemex method needs medium to coarse grind.
• Pour over requires medium grind.
• To make aeropress with 2-3 minute brewing time you need a medium to fine grind.
• For espresso and moka pot a fine grind is used for their short brewing time.

Perfect Turkish Coffee Grind Size

Turkish coffee uses a much older and simpler brewing technique than Western coffee brewing methods.

All you need is a Turkish coffee pot or as we call it in Turkish “cezve” or “ibrik”. Then what you need to do is mix ground coffee with water and heat it up to a certain point. Although some experience is required for the best results, Turkish coffee brewing method simply boils down to this – no pun intended.

Because there is no complicated technology involved other than a simple pot and hot water, extra fine coffee grounds are used to extract coffee in the most efficient way. It’s so efficient that Turkish coffee is considered “over-extracted” by Western standards.

So in order to make Turkish coffee, extra fine coffee grounds are used, even finer than those used for Espresso and coffee brewed in a moka pot.

How to Grind Turkish Coffee

Just like preparing any kind of coffee, the key here is to find high quality beans.

Contrary to popular belief, Turkish coffee doesn’t have to be made by using a special kind of coffee bean but it’s just the brewing method. So, you can make it with any type of bean that you like.

Medium to dark roast should be used.

• First, measure your coffee beans. 7-8 grams per serving should be just right.
• Then, put the coffee beans in the chamber.
• Start grinding, you can use manual or electric grinder. But if you’re going to use an electric grinder make sure that it can grind it up to the point that Turkish coffee requires.
• Grind until it’s extra fine. It should be powder-like and consistent through the whole batch.

Pre-ground Turkish Coffee

If you don’t want to grind your Turkish coffee yourself you can use pre-ground Turkish coffee.

The reason why you might want to grind your coffee yourself is that when you buy pre-ground coffee, over time it’s going to lose its freshness faster than whole coffee beans. The outer layer of the whole bean provides a protective surface against oxygen and this way beans keep fresh for longer.

But I, along with millions Turkish coffee lovers, get my coffee beans ground by the shopkeeper and I enjoy it just fine.

So if you’re looking for convenience and find the taste of coffee made with pre-ground beans enjoyable you might want to consider getting your Turkish coffee pre-ground.

Conclusion

Coffee in its natural state is nothing like the coffee that you know of. In order to turn it into the delicious beverage that we all love, putting it through many processes such as drying, roasting and grounding is required.

Different coffee methods require varying brewing times so using a different grind size is required for each of them.

For example cold brew uses extra coarse ground beans due to its long extraction time and espresso needs finely ground beans because it only takes 20-30 seconds to brew it.

Turkish coffee uses a simple brewing method and is brewed in 2-3 minutes. Because of this, a grind size that’s fit for fast extraction is necessary. When making Turkish coffee extra fine grind size that’s even finer than espresso is used.

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! 😉