Everything about Turkish Coffee

How to Make Turkish Coffee

As demonstrated by the websites linked to on the Resources page of this website, there are a multitude of different ways to make Turkish coffee. What follows is my own interpretation of how one should make Turkish coffee, which is based on my own experience. I do not claim that my way is the best, but I have personally found that I like my Turkish coffee best when made this way.

It is assumed that all learners will be doing this in their kitchen. It is futher assumed that they will have either a gas stove or an electrical stove, along with an ibrik, a demitasse cup and saucer, Turkish coffee, and a teaspoon in the vicinity of their workplace. Also although a demitasse cup is referred to in this procedure, it is not necessary; however, if using a different cup, one should make sure that the water contents of the cup can fit between one to two fingers below the tapered part of the ibrik.

Procedure

For one serving of Turkish coffee:

1. Fill one demitasse cup to the brim with clean water.
2. Pour the water into a 2-serving (6 fluid ounces or 180 milliliters) ibrik.
3. Put the demitasse cup onto its corresponding saucer nearby.
4. Place the ibrik onto the smallest eye of the stove.
5. Turn on the eye of the stove that the ibrik has been placed on to medium heat.
6. Open the container in which the Turkish coffee is stored.
7. Measure out two teaspoons of Turkish coffee and place it into the ibrik without stirring.
   • N.B.: A mound of coffee should be floating on the top of the water approximately 1/3 inch in height. If it is not 1/3 inch in height, add more coffee.
   • If one whishes to have sugar, add the sugar now [the sugar content should ideally not exceed the amount of coffee already added to the ibrik]
8. Let the water warm for one and a half minutes.
9. Stir the coffee into the water with a teaspoon until completely dissolved into the water.
   • No lumps of undissolved coffee should be visible.
   • N.B.: After this step, the preparer should not leave the kitchen. The preparer should keep a close eye on the coffee. If the coffee starts to foam without your knowledge and proceeds to the stage of boiling, the coffee will overflow, leaving you with burnt coffee on the stove top and a "ruined" cup of Turkish coffee (Principle: No foam = NOT a Turkish coffee)
10. Turn the eye of the stove off once "foam" starts to form in the ibrik.
11. Leave the ibrik on the stove until the foam almost reaches the lip of the ibrik, at which time, take the ibrik off the stove and place onto another, cold eye.
    • You should see gently frothing brown bubbles. If you start seeing the liquid of the coffee underneath those bubbles, immediately take the ibrik off of the stove.
    • You might need to take off the ibrik off of the heat source and put it back onto the heat source several times in order to manage the heat. You will want the foam to reach the lip of the ibrik before taking it off from its heat source completely.
    • N.B.: If one is using a brass or copper ibrik, make sure to wear some protection on your hand before handling the hot ibrik. This can be done by using an oven mitt or a kitchen towel.
12. Let the coffee rest for around one minute.
13. Take the ibrik into one's dominant hand and quickly pour the liquid into the demitasse cup.
    • N.B.: From experience, a quick pour is always better than a slow pour due to more foam being retained afterwards.
    • The liquid in the cup should have nice frothy bubbles all around. One should not be able to see the brown liquid below those bubbles.
14. Serve coffee in demitasse cup and saucer with a tall glass of water and a sweet of your choosing, preferably Turkish delight.

Video Tutorial

This is a video tutorial that I made which demonstrates the above procedure.