Just like a slow cooked stew, the coffee is constantly stirred and fussed upon while every one participates in the social activity of taking a coffee break. It is no more a simple sipping of the brew but a immersive and collaborative experience of the entire process. Finally, the brew is always served with a side of clear water and Turkish Delight; a balance of sweet and rich, bitter washed down with water as a cleanse.
Performed as such a ritual, the experience of coffee represents many things from friendship to welcome to gratitude to warmth.
Read MoreOn a visit to Turkey in 2014, I had the pleasure of enjoying the traditional way in which coffee is brewed, even today. No matter the medium of heat, the the process is neither solitary nor hastened, yet is very simplistic with most basic of cooking tools. Coal or heated sand is used to cook the coffee with water and the only tool used is the distinctly shaped vessel with the long handle.
But, beyond the technicalities, it is the ritualization of the process that struck a chord in me. The making of a traditional coffee is a communal process. It is neither an individual brewing experience nor one done in bulk. But, rather it is a many to many process. Coffee is cooked in individual vessels but as many vessels as people gathered are placed on the medium of heat.
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