This type of coffee has many names throughout Eastern Europe and Turkey, obviously depending on the nationality of the person who prepares it. For Turks it is Turkish coffee, for Cypriots it is Cypriot coffee and so on for Serbs, Bulgarians, Croats etc. In any case, the preparation is always the same and of course very different from the usual one we prepare in the West.
INGREDIENTS :
- greek coffee
- sugar
We will try to use coffee powder as it is found in Greece and which is slightly different from the coffee powder we are used to in the West (powder is more coarse). If this is not possible, we can use conventional coffee powder (ground coffee, I am not referring to freeze-dried coffee or Nescafé) of the standard type (arabica + robusta).
Greek coffee is taken in fairly small coffee cups and that same cup will serve to take the measure of water, coffee and sugar.
The coffee that we will need per cup is the content in a small teaspoon and the water that occupies the entirety of a small cup (30 ml ~1/7 cup). That is, to make four cups we will add four teaspoons of coffee and four cups full of water.
The typical "coffee maker" is an easy-to-find ladle that consists of a stainless steel body and a long handle. In Greece it is called "briki" and it is important since we must boil the coffee and remove it just when it reaches the edge, hence the long handle. And the sugar? Sugar has a problem in Greek coffee: it cannot be added afterwards. As there is no filter to separate the residue from the liquid when we serve the coffee, a significant amount of coffee grounds also falls, slowly falling to the bottom. If we added sugar and stirred it, it would take several minutes before we could drink the mixture and it would probably have cooled down. That is why Greek coffee must be "foreseen" according to the diner.
There are three types of coffee according to the degree of sweetness: sketos, metrios and ilikós. The sketos does not contain any sugar. The metrios is half and the ilikos is the sweet. Generally, the measure of sugar is the same as that of coffee, a teaspoon, that's why for the metrios we will add only half a tablespoon. That is to say, we take the coffee, the water and the sugar and we throw it in the "briki" and on the fire. You have to be careful because the coffee rises immediately: it will start to foam and when it is about to come out of the upper part of the ladle, we will separate it from the fire. It is served immediately in the cups and the diner will be careful not to burn themselves, in the first place, and to leave a short but prudent period of time so that the sediment settles at the bottom or the first sip can leave us with an "indelible" memory. (ie all grounds by mouth). It will also depend on each one how much we will rush the cup since doing it in its entirety can be quite unpleasant.
Greek coffee is always served with a glass of cold water. If you ever go to Greece or Cyprus, the way to order a coffee is "elenikós coffee" and to the question that will follow, answer "sketos, metrios or ilikós" to mark the desired sweetness.