Turkish Coffee

In preparing a cup of Turkish today, I decided to investigate the subject and learn a little bit more about a drink that has kept me alert during many lunch-hour meetings. Unfortunately my cup is on the weak side today, and I can't tell if it's lacking in sugar or coffee. Lately I've been reticent to consume too much sugar, given the warnings of the health-aware. But Turkish coffee needs sugar.

Turkish coffee feels natural to prepare. It's how mother nature wanted me to get my caffeine. There's no intermediary - you put ground coffee in hot water, and consume. No espresso machines, no filters, no presses. And most importantly - no freeze-drying conveyor belt touching my coffee and imparting its trademark grossness.

The fact that I began to feel this way since Elit's Turkish coffee advertising campaign is besides the point. Actually I loved this campaign so much that I'm going to post one of the billboards here:


The word translates to "Morning", and you really feel the effect of the coffee on the morning with that one word. For some reason this campaign really did it for me. It was probably the red colour, attracting me like a fruit fly to a melon. But I think the fact that the coffee was advertised alone made it appealing to me. Until now I thought of it as an outdated Israeli drink which no one would want to invest money promoting. But seeing this advertisement on billboards around Tel Aviv made me feel like this was a modern drink - even an alternative to espresso!

Elit recently received a complaint from local consumers who demanded that Elit stop referring to their product as "Turkish" coffee in light of Turkey's recent malevolence towards Israel. Elit (Strauss Group's coffee and candy lable) responded that "Turkish" merely refers to the bean-grinding method, one invented during the Ottoman empire, and well before Erdogan and his foreign policy. The coffee is made in Israel by Israelis, and they have no intention on changing a well-known name.

Elit's Turkish Coffee is coffee ground extremely fine. Finer than espresso. Israelis make it by adding a heaping tablespoon to a cup, adding sugar, and then pouring in hot water. It's known locally as "Kaffe Botz" or Mud Coffee, because you need to wait for the coffee grinds to settle at the bottom, which form a sludgy black layer. Same preparation as instant, but here your coffee is much fresher.

The Turkish put in more effort, and use specialized hardware for their coffee preparation. Their method involves adding ground coffee and sugar to an Ibric (pictured on the right) filled with cold water; heating it over a low flame until a few bubbles appear; and then pouring it into a Finjan, a small coffee cup.

Is Turkish coffee known at all in the US/Canada? Here in Israel you can find Turkish coffee at all convenience stores, as well as in coffee shops and offices. As a morning drink, American drip-brew seems more sensible to me. It's less of an electric jolt to your waking body, and more of a slow wakeup massage. But there are some moments where it seems to work quite well. When you need a drink to nurse over a period of time, and the jolt of espresso to keep you alert - Turkish is just right.

Yemeni Flatbread - Lahoh

I digress from coffee for a moment. Lahoh was Friday's baking project. I wanted to bake some sort of bread, and this just seemed simpler. Only one rising, and you don't need a baking tray. I've only been out of college a few months, so I'm still lacking basic human equipment, such as a baking tray.

Lahoh are shaped like over-sized pancakes, but they are bread in essence. They begin as a yeasted batter and are left to rise for one hour, after which they are poured into a non-stick frying pan and left to cook for one minute and a half. Their preparation is simple. Still, they are a special flatbread to behold. Ripping a piece of Lahoh is like ripping a soft pancake. They are spongy on the inside, with a crisp underside. Eating them feels decadent, my girlfriend pointed out, and we agreed that the cause was the feeling of eating a fried food. Eating white Pita feels simple in contrast.

The most unique property of Lahoh is its many surface holes. It looks as though a machine has perforated the flatbreads in one hundred different spots. And until I made it myself, their source was sheer mystery to me. The solution was much simpler, and related to the high water content in the dough. Lahoh dough is a wet batter, and when heated in the pan, its moisture escapes in the form of bubbles, leaving behind bubble imprints.

You can see the formation of bubble-holes taking place over the short cooking time:











Lahoh Recipe

1¼ hours | 1 hour prep
SERVES 16

* 1 kg flour
* 1 tablespoon dry yeast
* 1 tablespoon fine salt
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 1 1/2 liters lukewarm water

1. Combine all the ingredients and mix until you get a smooth batter without lumps.
2. Place the bowl, covered with aluminum foil, in a warm place for about an hour, and allow the batter to rise.
3. Choose a good Teflon frying pan.
4. The frying pan must be cold. 5. Oil very lightly, you can use a spray, place on a high flame and pour in a ladleful of the batter.
6. When the batter begins to bubble (after a minute or a minute and a half), turn the frying pan over onto a dry towel.
7. Keep the lahoh in a pile, back-to-back, face-to-face.
Cool the bottom of the frying pan with tap water, and put back on the stove.

Instant Coffee Revolution?

Starbucks VIA Ready Brew
Single-Serving Instant Coffee packs

Taste: 6/10 (Not quite Turkish Coffee, but markedly better than instant.)
Marketing: 11/10

"Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as death, and sweet as love."

(Turkish Proverb)

Starbucks' new-ish single-serving instant coffee known as 'VIA' has 3 gum-stick-size packets in one slim package. Opening the top reveals three shiny packets. These packets are sexy, and possess a clear urban chic. They are designed using colors which one would associate with coffee culture - luxurious brown, white, gold. Holding one between your fingers feels like holding a cigarette or a condom case. You need to hold it to believe it.

The VIA package itself easily belongs in the room of a luxury business hotel. In fact, behind the middle packet is a little mug logo and the phrase "Hotel stay," indicating that the product was at least partially intended for this purpose. On the cover is a cutout of a takeout cardboard coffee cup, with details of the brew indicated with little X's, as they would be indicated on a real cup of coffee to-go. Here again Starbucks paid attention to the little things. The colours feel modern, and again, bold. But they are calming as well, as coffee products should be.

It should be clear by now that taste is not my main focus with this product.

Starbucks is trying to milk the instant coffee cow. They came up with an idea that would elevate their instant above the competition. The idea was to add pure ground coffee to their freeze-dried granules, giving a taste more closely resembling a freshly-brewed cup. And it sort of worked. Of course this solution has already been in use for hundreds of years by the Turks. Turkish coffee (more like the Israeli version of Turkish Coffee) is just finely ground coffee which is added to hot water. And then consumed. It is fantastic. It is strong, bold, sweet, and it doesn't need to pose as a different product - because it is much loved on its own merits.

Ready Brew does take some of the grossness out of instant, but not all of it. To me it tastes like 3 ingredients were loosely mixed together - drip coffee, instant coffee, and ground coffee.

I've read lots of reviews saying that this coffee is midway between classic instant and freshly-brewed coffee. That's not a bad description. But if you have the option, go for the real deal - and make an intense cup of Turkish coffee. It's just as portable, twice as strong, and doesn't involve any compromises.

3 Office Drinks

(Photo taken with the Retro Camera app on Android)

I get my work espresso from an industrial Lavazza machine. It's a pod machine, using one of five Lavazza pod flavours (Green, Brown, Blue, and Decaf (not sure what colour it is, but who cares, right?)). I do appreciate having a decent machine, but unless we live with variation, we're all just drinking Victory coffee, aren't we?

Ice Coffee

Not all offices have ice. My floor doesn't, so I sometimes climb to the 12th floor to take some from their freezer. If yours doesn't - no matter. I had a great Ice Coffee from Caffenetto which was sans glace, and it was perfect. Don't bother using instant coffee for this, because it won't make ice coffee. And if you only have instant, then you can make a decent Ice Instant Coffee, but that should probably be filed in a section other than Ice Coffee.

Use the strongest espresso you can find, because the more espresso you put in - the harder it will be to cool it. If you have ice, then you can bypass that instruction.

Without Ice: Fill a glass with a shot of espresso. Mix in 2 heaping mini-spoons of sugar (sorry, but that's what we've got at the office). Top up with milk.

With Ice: Fill a glass with a shot of espresso. Mix in 2 heaping mini-spoons of sugar. Add lots of ice, and then top up with milk.

Chai Latte

You need a milk steamer for the next 2. Sorry to people working in smaller offices who are mal-equipped.

Fill up a glass with 1/3 hot water. Add a Chai tea bag. Add sugar - don't skimp. Remove tea bag and top up with frothed milk. Mix, and powder the top with cinammon and chocolate shavings. Just kidding.

Hot Chocolate

Add 3 or 4 spoons of chocolate powder (less if you're sensitive to sugar) to a glass. Top up with frothed milk.

Chocolate powder seems to be unusually common in Israeli offices. And I've never seen anyone else drinking it.

Caffeine Content

Which has more caffeine - espresso or drip coffee? Ounce for ounce, espresso has 2.5 times the caffeine content. Per serving, drip coffee has 3.25 times more caffeine.

Per Serving:
1 serving of drip coffee (8 oz.) contains 130 mg caffeine.
1 serving of espresso (1 oz.) contains 40 mg caffeine.

Per Ounce:
1 oz. of drip coffee contains 16.25 mg caffeine while 1 oz. of espresso contains 40 mg.

An interesting result for this is that an Americano (one espresso shot and hot water) has far less caffeine than a drip cup - 3.25 times less, contrary to the popular belief that Americanos are "stronger" than typical American coffee. Although they may taste stronger due to the fact that espresso coffee is generally roasted darker, they contain less caffeine.


Source: Center for Science in the Public Interest

Lavazza Espresso Point

What kind of coffee I'd be drinking for the next year(s) was one of the big unknowns coming to work. I figured I would be spending countless hours at the firm, since it's my articling year, and I was hoping that they had invested in a real espresso machine. Turns out I was right and wrong.

The machine is the Lavazza Espresso Point (pictured here).

Notice that the machine is both completely automatic (always at the right temperature, no pumping required, espresso shot size pre-determined), yet still has a steaming wand. It runs on Lavazza pods, similar to Nespresso, Illy, and all the rest of the pod systems. Also, mugs are stored and heated on top of the machine - something nice which I hadn't encountered before. The espresso itself is ok. I did not fall in love, and it was definitely not as good as the rich Nespresso taste I've grown used to. But the machine itself is definitely pro level, and the wide range of espresso drinks it can produce makes up for its flaws.

The machine can heat milk automatically without the need to use the steam wand. Clearly this is a bad idea since it allows the workers to be lazy and subsist on merely heated milk, as opposed to frothed milk. I'm still working on that learning process, using primarily Youtube videos and CoffeeGeek's guide to frothing for newbs.

An interesting thing I found on this Q&A is that water initially comes out of the steam wand in order to clean out old milk. This is good to know, since you don't want gross old milk-water in your coffee. Therefore it suggests you first turn on the wand while it's pointed at the grill, then, while it is still emitting steam, turn it (holding the sleeve so that you don't burn yourself) and quickly plunge it into the cold milk.

Back to the Melitta

My first foray into the coffee world was with an old Melitta plastic cone, the kind that you place on top of your mug, and the coffee brews right into your cup. It's definitely convenient - takes just a couple minutes longer than instant coffee. Still, after discovering espresso, it was hard to go back. I found that espresso was a perfect example of the "good things come in small packages" idea. Despite its small dosage, it did not lack in richness and taste.

But today I decided to revisit the Melitta, and it produces a decent cup of drip coffee. Since I've been using my 3-shot Moka Pot to get my "espresso", I've only been able to produce a relatively small quantity of coffee per brewing. Since it's exam time, I decided to make a giant cup of drip coffee. This time I first heated 1/2 C of milk in the glass, in order to get both the glass and the milk warm. Then I brewed directly into the milk.