Middle Eastern Coffee Basics

Ingredients

The Coffee

So many options. In all styles of middle eastern coffee, the coffee is a finely powdered arabica blend. FINELY powdered. Like powdered sugar. So you won't be buying some beans from the grocery store and grinding them for this. Believe me, I've tried, even with the pretty-decent grinders at the grocery store. You basically have two options: you can buy pre-powdered coffee, or you can get yourself a spice mill and do it by hand. I suppose there might be a really nice home grinder out there that would do it, but I haven't seen one yet.

Sugar

Sugar preference is a very personal thing. Every single time I've had any kind of middle eastern coffee in a restaurant, it's had too much sugar for my taste. Most types of middle eastern coffee are typically served with nearly as much sugar as coffee added to the water! In some cultures, the amount of sugar varies strictly with the occasion -- less for funerals, more for weddings, etc.

So experiment a bit to find an amount of sugar that suits you, and vary it each time to suit your mood.

Spices

You can spice your coffee with just about anything that sounds good and a few things that sound terrible. The Egyptians typically use cardamom. The Greeks use chicory. Berber coffee uses coriander. I've tried clove, allspice, cinnamon and chocolate to good effect.

Pot

Before you get started, you're going to need the right kind of coffee pot. The same type of pot will work nicely for any of the kinds of coffee described here, although there are some regional differences as to style.

I'll avoid using any non-English term for the pot that you'll use, because the term varies from place to place. In Egypt it's generally called an ibrik. In Greece it's a briki. In Turkey, a cesveh.

All of these words describe the same general thing -- a tin, steel, copper or brass pot, flat on the bottom, that's wider at the bottom than it is at the top. The pot will have a handle, made of wood or metal, coming off the rim. Fancier models may have an ornate spout and/or decoration hammered into the surface.

These pots are fairly difficult to track down, especially the fancy ones. Try your local middle eastern grocery store first; if they don't have one, try an upscale kitchenware place. If you're still out of luck, you can hunt in antique shops or search for "turkish coffee pot" or "ibrik" online.

Preparation

The method you use to prepare the coffee will have an enormous impact on the thickness of the brew, how settled the grounds are, and the amount and quality of the foam. I'll talk in detail about the different techniques later. First, the basics common to all methods. Even this ordering might not be the same for all types, but it's generally the way things go.

  1. First, turn your stove to Medium or thereabouts. Gas works somewhat better, but electric will do the job, too.
  2. Fill your pot with the appropriate amount of water. Generally you want the water and coffee together to come up just below the narrowest point of the pot. Put the water on the heat for a couple minutes.
  3. Measure out the appropriate amount of coffee (varies wildly from method to method).
  4. Put the coffee in the pot, along with any spices.

Different methods of making coffee vary too much to describe generically what to do next. These variations are the main reason I started these pages. Suffice it to say that, eventually, you pour the coffee into the cup, let it settle for a while, and then drink it.