J notes that the price of coffee has gone up. He buys the beans and grinds them for our morning coffee. Makes it in the French press and brings me a cup in bed in the morning. Thoroughly spoiled. Turkish coffee is normally sold already ground - and as finely as talcum powder. Which doesn’t work well in a French press, so we don’t do it, in spite of knowing how and actually possessing the little cups.
Nonetheless, today is World Turkish Coffee Day. And we do drink Turkish coffee. Or Greek - same thing bearing in mind national sensitivities when you order. Known in the South as Cyprus coffee, which you could probably say here as well without offending anyone unduly. It’s also necessary to say how sweet you want it. The coffee is made in a small long handled pot - preferably over hot sand but an electric or gas burner will do. If sugar is to be included it must be added to the coffee and water at the start, and each cup is made individually. Once found myself in the South being asked how I wanted my coffee and only able to think of sade - Turkish for plain (or black). The correct answer would have been sketos - Greek for unsweetened. (Alternatives would be metrio or glyko for slightly sweet or very sweet). No one adds milk in either country. Could only hope they were unable to tell what this foreigner was saying.
For many years in the South it was normal for cafés to offer Nescafé as a (slightly more expensive!) alternative to Cyprus coffee. Have no idea when this was first considered acceptable restaurant fare. During the war? Now the standard alternative offering seems to be Americano, which does owe its origins to wartime and American soldiers who were unhappy with small cups of thick Greek or Turkish coffee and were therefore fobbed off with espresso diluted with extra hot water. Not the same as brewed coffee - and suspect them of saving up the espresso concentrate and adding boiling water at the time a cup is ordered. But this is mere digression on world Turkish coffee day.
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