Turkish Coffee - Equipment

Equipment

Turkish coffee is normally prepared using a narrow-topped small boiling pot called an kanaka, cezve, džezva, xhezve or μπρίκι (bríki) (basically a tiny ewer), a teaspoon and a heating apparatus. The ingredients are very finely ground coffee, sometimes cardamom, cold water and (if desired) sugar. It is served in a demitasse (fincan, fildžan,filxhan or φλιτζάνι (flidzáni)). Some modern cups have handles; traditional cups did not, and coffee was drunk either by handling the cup with the fingertips or, more often, by placing the cup in a zarf, a metal container with a handle.

Traditionally, the pot is made of copper and has a wooden handle, although other metals such as aluminium with a non-stick coating are also used. The size of the pot is chosen to be close to the total volume of the cups to be prepared, since using too large a pot causes much of the foam to stick to the inside of it. The teaspoon is used both for stirring and measuring the amount of coffee and sugar. The teaspoons in some other countries are much larger than the teaspoons in countries where Turkish coffee is common: The dipping parts of the teaspoons in these countries are about 1 cm (0.4 inches) long and 0.5 cm (0.2 inches) wide.

A moderately low heat is used so that the coffee does not come to the boil too quickly—the beans need to be in hot water for long enough to extract the flavour. In a modern setting normal gas or electric heating is satisfactory. Traditional heating sources include the embers of a fire, or a tray about 10 cm (4 in) deep filled with sand. The tray is placed on the burner. When the sand is hot, the coffee pot is placed in the sand. This allows a more even and gentle heat transfer than direct heat.