Coffee just like grandma makes

It is traditional in Turkey that the fine art of coffee making is handed down from grandmother to child. Defne Koryurek learned from her grandmother – now it’s her daughter’s turn My daughter is learning how to make coffee. I say coffee but of course it is not the instant coffee she enjoys with her cookies, prepared with lots of milk. It's what we call Turkish coffee. The dark creation made of very fine ground coffee beans, cold water and perhaps some sugar to taste – a drink loved so possessively it is given a local name almost everywhere else that it is served and sipped around the former Ottoman lands – is what she is learning how to prepare. She is 12. Exactly the age when I was taught how to make it. In its most beautifully unspoken sense, it is agreed that the elderly teach the young how to make coffee, and in our case the elderly being my mother and the young, my Refika, it is of course a moment of remembering past experiences for me. I had my training because of my now uncle, then Mehmet, my sisters boyfriend and his family's visit for the occasion of asking for my sisters hand. My parents were still married to each other and despite the fact that they did not share the same way of receiving such important company, it was expected by both that my sister prepared coffee for them, as the old tradition suggests. She being somewhat nasty but thoroughly excited and most likely confused, refused to do so. continue