Thursday, December 25, 2008

Turkish Coffee

Ahhhh... For Christmas morning I was planning on a big plate of Jesus' birthday cake and ice cream but after my daughter tossed her cookies everything went a different direction. So while my whole family is sick or just plain not feeling well and camped out in front of the tele, I was allowed to make some Turkish coffee.

So I searched the internet to learn how to make it and then I spent 20 minutes searching the house for my Cezve. A no-go on the Cezve so I made it in my small sauce pot. While Turkish coffee snobs aschew the use of a sauce pot I did not figure that it would matter much but I think I was mistaken.

I ground the beans very finely and I added 1 heaping teaspoon of the grounds to 12oz. of cold water in the sauce pan then I set the brew to heat slowly until it boiled. I let it boil for a minute or so and then I poured some of the coffee into a cup - which I let sit for a minute or two allowing for the grounds to settle.


The reason that I suspect that I really did need a Cezve for the coffee is because my brew never developed the expected foam on top of the coffee. Would this have changed the flavor? I don't know but I suspect that the body and the mouth feel would have been different. I will have to find the Cezve and let you know.

The coffee that I did end up with was actually pretty good. It had no discernible attributes to speak of but it did have a full bodied mouth feel and a genuine standard coffee flavor. I used some Starbuck's Zambia Kasama for this and I was surprised that the Starbuck's flavoring seemed to vanish leaving just a plain coffee taste.

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