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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Turkey
Finely ground coffee, slowly heated with water and sugar in a small pot until foam forms, and served unfiltered with the grounds settling at the bottom of the cup. UNESCO recognized this culture as an intangible heritage in 2013.
Traditional drink from Turkey
Also known as: café turco, Turkish coffee
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Türk kahvesi — Turkey
Turkish coffee starts with roasted beans ground into a very fine powder. The grounds, cold water and sugar, if desired, are placed together in a cezve, a small long-handled coffee pot, which is slowly heated until the foam rises. Sugar is added beforehand, so you order the coffee sade (without sugar), az şekerli (a little), orta (medium) or şekerli (sweet). The drink is served in small cups, unfiltered: the grounds settle at the bottom and the foam stays on top.
The coffee is served with a glass of water and often a piece of lokum. It is sipped slowly during conversation, in homes and in coffee houses where people meet to talk, read and exchange news. Inviting someone for coffee is a sign of friendship and hospitality, and a Turkish saying claims that a cup of coffee leaves a memory for forty years.
Coffee has a place in ceremonies. It is part of engagement rituals and is served to guests at parties and holidays. After drinking, it is common to turn the cup over onto the saucer and read fortune from the patterns left by the grounds.
Since 2013, the culture and tradition of Turkish coffee have been included in UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage, described as a practice of the whole community transmitted within families through observation and participation. Very similar preparation methods exist in Greece, Cyprus, the Balkans and the Arab world, where the drink has other names, such as Greek coffee or Bosnian coffee; UNESCO’s recognition refers specifically to the tradition in Turkey.
Turkey
The culture and tradition of Turkish coffee, practiced by the whole community, were recognized by UNESCO as intangible heritage in 2013.
Roasted coffee ground to a very fine powder, cold water and sugar to taste.
In a small cup, slowly, without stirring the grounds; served with a glass of water and often a lokum. Specify the sugar level before preparation.
All year round, after meals and when receiving guests; it plays a role in marriage proposals and at celebrations.
Your questions
Because it is made with very finely ground coffee and served unfiltered. The grounds settle at the bottom of the cup.
Before preparation, because the sugar goes into the pot: sade (no sugar), az şekerli (a little), orta (medium) or şekerli (sweet).
Yes. The culture and tradition of Turkish coffee were recognized by UNESCO in 2013 as intangible cultural heritage.
Flavors of Turkey
A grape distillate flavored with anise that turns milky-white when mixed with water. Sipped slowly alongside many meze dishes, it’s the drink of long conversational tables in Turkey and has a protected designation of origin for the whole country.
Wide skewer of lamb meat with tail fat, knife‑chopped (zırh) with red pepper, charcoal‑grilled and served with lavaş, onion with sumac, grilled tomato and pepper.
Fine bulgur hand-kneaded with dried pepper (isot), pepper and tomato paste, onion, garlic, walnuts, parsley, pomegranate molasses and spices, meatless, served in lettuce leaves: Adıyaman çiğ köfte.
Shoulder and rib of lamb roasted for hours in a stone oven, served over rice cooked in the meat’s broth in a tin-lined copper pan with lid: the meat dish of Ankara Province.
Small white beans with tahini tarator sauce, garlic, lemon and vinegar, boiled egg, tomato and parsley: in other regions piyaz is a salad; in Antalya, it is a main course.
Very thin shoestring potatoes, yogurt with garlic and strips of beef sautéed in butter, layered on the same plate: çökertme is Bodrum’s kebab, served in the district since the 1960s.
Thin slices of döner over pieces of pide bread, with tomato sauce, hot butter poured at the table and yogurt on the side: the kebab named after İskender Efendi, of Bursa.
Sweet made from unsalted fresh cheese cooked with wheat flour and sugar until fibrous and shiny, served hot: the specialty of Gelibolu, on the Gallipoli peninsula, on the European side of Çanakkale.
Rice cooked for about 12 hours in the steam of a copper pot sealed with dough, over the meat and butter, served in a large copper dish: the wedding dish of İskilip, in Çorum.
Lamb less than one year old roasted for two to three hours in a brick oven with an earthen floor, cut with a cleaver and served with pide bread, onion and tomato, to be eaten with the hands.
Skewers of lamb liver alternated with tail fat, seasoned with pepper, thyme, coriander and sumac and grilled over coals, served on lavaş: in Diyarbakır it is even eaten for breakfast.
Beef liver sliced into very thin sheets, lightly coated in flour and briefly fried, served with fried dried red peppers: the best-known dish of Edirne, near the border with Greece and Bulgaria.
Lamb seasoned with onion, salt and black pepper, stacked on a horizontal spit that turns in front of a wood fire and served on skewers (cağ): the kebab of Erzurum and Oltu.
Extremely thin sheets of filo pastry with Antep pistachio and butter, drizzled with syrup: Gaziantep baklava was the first Turkish product protected as a geographical indication in the European Union.
Two layers of kadayıf dough in thin strands with butter and unsalted fresh cheese in the middle, browned on both sides and drenched in hot syrup: Antakya künefe, a hot dish with the cheese stretching.
The fish sandwich of Istanbul's historic center: a grilled fillet, usually mackerel, inside bread with lettuce, onion and lemon, sold by the Eminönü piers next to the Galata Bridge.
Ice cream made from goat's milk, sugar and salep, dense, elastic and slow to melt: Maraş ice cream, from Kahramanmaraş, that stretches and is chewed.
Goose raised on the Kars plateau, salted at the start of winter and roasted in the tandır, with wheat pilaf (bulgur) cooked directly beneath in the dripping fat from the bird: Kars' winter dish.
Tiny dumplings of dough filled with beef, onion and basil, cooked and topped with butter, tomato paste and pepper, with yogurt and sumac optional: Kayseri mantı.
Very fine strands of hand-pulled sugar and wheat flour toasted in butter, with a cotton-like texture that melts in the mouth: İzmit pişmaniye, a sweet memento from Kocaeli.
Very thin dough, nearly a meter long, topped with minced meat, tomato, pepper and onion and baked in a wood-fired stone oven: Konya's etliekmek is served cut into pieces.
Rack of lamb opened like a pocket, stuffed with rice, meat, almonds and spices, sewn up, slow-cooked for hours and browned in the oven: Mardin's celebratory dish.
Meat and vegetables cooked inside a clay jug from Avanos, sealed with flour dough; at the table the jug is broken when served. It is the best-known dish of Cappadocia.
Cornmeal toasted in butter, cooked in water until it becomes a cream, with melted kolot cheese on top that stretches: Rize muhlama, made in a copper pan with a wooden spoon and served hot.
Lokum (the Turkish delight) cooked for hours in a copper cauldron, rolled in coconut and filled with hazelnut; the saffron version, cut into cubes, echoes the name Safranbolu, an Ottoman town listed by UNESCO.
Small balls of hand‑chopped lamb alternating with pieces of eggplant on the skewer, grilled over charcoal: Şanlıurfa’s eggplant kebab, served with grilled pepper, onion and bread.
Young lamb steamed, hung inside a pit-oven about 3 meters deep, served early in the morning at dawn: büryan is Siirt’s breakfast.
Small cylindrical meatballs of beef with day-old bread, red onion, cumin and pepper, grilled over charcoal and served in portions of ten, with spicy sauce and roasted pepper.
Lamb, tail fat, eggplant and potato on a skewer hung in a special oven, with tomato, pepper and garlic roasted alongside, served on thin bread: the Tokat kebab, born in the vineyard houses.
Flattened beef meatballs, day-old bread, garlic and salt, grilled over charcoal embers and served with grilled pepper and tomato: the Akçaabat köfte, on the Black Sea coast in Trebizond.
