You’ll need an ibrik (also known as a cezve), coffee, water, a heat source, and a little sugar and ground cardamom.
1. Grind the coffee to a very fine grind. Use the finest setting on your grinder (finer than espresso) so the grinds end up something like dusty cocoa powder.
2. Add your coffee and water to the ibrik (use a small saucepan if you don’t yet have an ibrik). Combine the coffee and cold water at a ratio of about 2.5 grams of coffee per ounce of water. As an example, for a 10-ounce ibrik, use 20 grams of coffee and 8 ounces of water (you may adjust the ratio if you like a stronger coffee) Don’t fill the ibrik to the top or it will boil it over.
3. Stir in a teaspoon or more of sugar and 1/8 teaspoon of cardamom
4. Slowly heat the coffee. For best results start with cold water over a medium-low flame and heat the coffee up to near-boiling.
5. Take it off the heat! You’ll soon find as you practice your ibrik brewing that it is all about taking it off the heat before the ibrik boils over. Remove the ibrik from heat and allow it to cool down for about twenty seconds.
6. Put it back on the heat and bring the coffee back up to the same near-boiling point. Remove it from heat again and allow it to cool. Some people prefer to do this a third time — you want to allow enough brewing time while not jeopardizing the crema (foam) that’s forming at the top of your coffee and how you manage this balancing act will be up to you.
6. Serve. Pour out your coffee into a small cup, like espresso demi tasses or even smaller. You’re going for the effect of a foamy crema on top of the cup, which indicates a good quality brew. Watch out for all the silty grounds remaining at the bottom and enjoy.
Read more about Turkish coffee culture.
Photo by Quinn Dombrowski (Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
www.flickr.com/photos/53326337@N00/496835422
