Greek Coffee (aka Turkish Coffee)
Take a demi tase cup. Fill the cup with cold water. Add as many cups as you will be making – no more than two – in the briki (that’s what you call that special small pot, usually made of copper).
Add 1 to 1 ½ teaspoons of coffee per cup of water. Add sugar – good start is 1 teaspoon of sugar per cup of water. Place over medium heat and stir with a tea spoon. Do not overstir. Once is good enough. Let the water warm up slowly and watch, this is one time you have to watch the water boil. You will notice the top of the coffee is a light brown color and the grounds are floating on the surface. As the water warms up more the coffee will start getting a darker ring around the edge. A second or two later you will notice the coffee rising! Pull out of the fire immediately and pour in the coffee cup raising the briki as to create bubbles on the surface of the coffee. This has two purposes. First is to start cooling the coffee slightly, the second and most important is to mix the fine grounds with the liquid. As you noticed there is no filtration, so the grounds settle on the bottom of the cup. Let the coffee settle for a minute. Sip from the top with a slurping noise – I know, it sounds rude, but it is necessary. This way you get the coffee and not the grounds! DO NOT STIR – DO NOT SWISH. This will mix the grounds that have been settling with the rest of the coffee. Drinking Greek coffee is a slow activity. It requires a little patience and is not something to hurry. It should take you about 10 – 15 minutes to drink it (and that is the fast drinkers).
You can watch the process on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm-WhTRE-74&feature=related
