Lessons in Turkish coffee

It comes in only one size, in various degrees of sweetness, and it must have an even level of foam. Andrew Finkel passes on the secrets of the nation’s convivial drink “Size doesn’t matter” was the very first thing I learned when I sat down, notebook opened and pencil sharpened, to acquire the basic elements of Turkish. This was in an age well before Starbucks taught us that the most important decision in life is whether to chose “grande”, “venti”, or the merely “tall”. Turkish coffee comes in only one size, and an elegant one at that. The real choice, my Turkish teacher told me as she laid the demitasse on its saucer, is how much sweetness you require. And so the lesson began. I learned the word az sekerli for just a little sugar, orta for medium sweet, a sugary sekerli, and for those who lead a more austere existence, there is sade – plain and unadorned. My mentor was Guzin Berkmen, a formidable woman who pioneered the teaching of Turkish to foreigners, and while she was a strict, ruler-thumping grammarian, there was a gentler side to her method. I may have struggled to put one word in front of another, but as I gently blew the perfect head of froth to the other side of the cup to clear a place to sip, I felt I could taste the new world I was trying to acquire. Lesson after lesson, cup after cup, I began to adopt the conviviality the language required. continue