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Food Tradition

Turkish Coffee Culture

Social and Ceremonial Dining Customs

Turkish Coffee Culture is the tradition surrounding Turkish coffee, a style of coffee prepared in a small pot called a cezve using very finely ground coffee beans that are not filtered out before serving. The drink and its associated preparation and serving customs appear under different names across the Middle East, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.

Facts
Origin Period, From (Year)Sourced to the subject's own account
from 1539 1
Origin Period, To (Year)
to 1554 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountMarks the opening of Istanbul's first coffeehouse in 1554 (per the same source already cited on this entity's own origin-start-year fact), the point at which the coffeehouse ritual became a fixed public institution, closing the formative period that began with coffee reaching Istanbul in 1539.
Origin RegionSourced to the subject's own account
Ottoman Empire, centered on Istanbul, with roots in the coffeehouse traditions of Damascus and the Yemeni coffee trade; UNESCO has inscribed Turkish coffee culture on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. 1
Sources
1. Turkish coffee (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • History section, first coffeehouse paragraph
    It appears that the first coffeehouse in Istanbul was opened in 1554 (some say 1551) by two Arab merchants, Hakem of Aleppo and Shems of Damascus (they may have been separate establishments at first). Soon, coffeehouses spread all over Istanbul and even to small towns in Anatolia.
  • History section, first paragraph
    Coffee was in use in Istanbul by 1539; a legal document mentions that Ottoman admiral Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha's house had a coffee chamber.
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