How to prepare Turkish coffee and how to read the coffee grounds

How to prepare Turkish coffee and how to read the coffee grounds

How to prepare Turkish coffee

You will need a special pot (that is called "cevze" in Turkish) to prepare Turkish coffee, a very fine grinded coffee (ask at the shop to grind the coffee as fine as possible !) some coffee cups and sugar.

Let's prepare 4 coffee cups of Turkish coffee. Add in the Turkish pot (“cevze”) two small coffee spoons for each cup of coffee, so for our 4 cups of coffee you will need to add 8 spoons of coffee. Fill one coffee cup with cold water and add it to the pot (for our 4 cups you will need to add 4 cups of cold water). So generally for each coffee cup you will need a cup of water.

If you ask for Turkish coffee in Turkey, the waiter will ask you if you want your coffee "sade" (without sugar) "az sekerli" (with a little bit of sugar) or "sekerli" (with more sugar). So according to your taste you will add sugar to the coffee as you prepare it. The normal amount would be 2 small coffee spoons of sugar for each cup of coffee.

So you added : water, coffee and sugar to your Turkish pot “cevze”. Cook the coffee until it boils.

Remove the pot from the fire, mix it and return it again so it boils a second time. Watch out because the coffee can pour over your stove ! The good Turkish coffee is the one that gives foam !

Add the coffee into the coffee cups and serve. As the Turkish coffee contains grounds of coffee, you should drink it very slowly, appreciating the flavor as the coffee ground settle down at the bottom of the cup.

A frequent question is: “When should I stop drinking the coffee ?” You should drink the coffee until you fell the coffee ground on your mouth. As the coffee ground is heavier then the liquid it will settle down at the bottom of the cup.

As soon as you finish drinking the coffee you can begin the “ceremony” of reading the Coffee grounds !

Turkish
Brass Pot
to prepare
Turkish coffee

How to read the coffee grounds !

I will explain in a few lines how to read the coffee grounds. There are "experts" in reading coffee grounds and there are also books about it ! My explanation is a very basic one for beginners ! The Chinese were the first to read the future on the tea grounds, after it the Arabs started reading the future it a the coffee grounds. Today it is very common to read the coffee grounds in the Middle East.

The person that drank (Figure 1) the coffee should make the following procedure:(Note that this procedure can not be done by another person!) she should remove the saucer and put it up side down over the coffee cup as it is shown on the animation (figure 2). Then she should make some (2 or 3) small circular movements with the coffee cup and the saucer over it (Figure 3). After doing it, she should turn the saucer and cup all together up side down ( Figure 4). Some people believe that adding a coin on the top of the coffee cup would bring money to the person, so add one ! The coin will absorb the heat of the coffee cup.

Now you should wait until that the cup of coffee cool down. If you look at the coffee cup before it cools down, the coffee grounds will slip away and you will not be able to read the coffee grounds properly. So be patient and wait !

The person who read the coffee ground should "open" the coffee cup (Figure 5). Turks says “open” as they take the coffee cup and start reading the coffee grounds. If the coffee cup stays a little bit tight together with the saucer that means good luck and fortune! Nice start ! The bottom of the coffee cup means your heart or your house. So if the coffee grounds stays at the bottom of the coffee cup, that means you have problems at home or your heart is broken... If the bottom is clean that means the opposite !Everything is white and clean !

You will see around the coffee cup a lot of different images were formed. Here you will need a bit of imagination to see those images ! There are also some persons who has the power of clairvoyance and can see more than others...

Turkish Coffee Cups

Each image has a meaning, if you see: fish (big luck - happiness or money), dog (fidelity), snake (betrayal), cat (selfishness) and so on! The most usual figure is the fish that is represented by the coffee grounds in a similar form of a fish ( round image as an oval form). So several symbols can be interpreted as: rings (marriage), children (births), bird (good news), etc... Notice that the drawing does not need to be very defined! It would look like a modern art work !

You will also notice that you might find long lines, each one of these lines symbolizes a person. If you have 4 lines, it means that 4 people are getting together. You will have to look and imagine... so you will read the coffee grounds.

After you read the coffee cup, you should get the saucer and pour the coffee grounds over the coffee cup (Figure 6). In the saucer you will also see some images that can be read.

Turkish coffee is very common in Turkey, and it is also very common to see people reading each others friends' cup of coffee, this is a part of the Turkish culture! I hope you have enjoyed this article!

If you have interest in buying Turkish coffee, Turkish cevze (coffee pot to prepare Turkish coffee) or Turkish coffee cups, click at the list bellow.

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