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Keeping to tradition: Mehmet Kurukahveci, like his grandfather, still sells coffee ‘straight out of the coffee grinder, still warm after roasting’

rice and various exotic spices. These were sold in the Spice Market, which explains why this market is also known as the Egyptian Bazaar. From Istanbul, coffee beans and the beverage found its way to the West and within a few decades of its introduction, Europeans were addicted to this new drink. Later cultivated in South America, now the largest producer, coffee became universal and a necessity of life. Today, life without coffee is unthinkable and millions of tons are consumed yearly. If the coffee plant, Coffia Arabica’s homeland is Ethiopia and does not grow in Turkey, why then does one refer to Turkish coffee? The answer is that it was in Turkey that a new method of preparing ground coffee in a cezve, a small metal pot with a handle, was invented and Turks introduced this new drink prepared in their own way to Europe. Gaining a hold first in Venice, the addiction spread quickly, until the streets of London around 1700 were full of shop signs depicting a sultans head or a Turkish coffee pot. Lured inside by the smell, customers of the first coffee shops may well have been patronising establishments owned by Jewish or Christian subjects of the Sultan, who had benefited from Cromwell’s liberal immigration policies a few decades before. It is quite possible that the Ottomans encouraged this exodus with the intention of COFFEE promoting the coffee trade. Coffee houses n the right of the Istanbul Spice Bazaar, leading up you may find yourself carried up the street by Sufi orders, it spread to the other quickly became all the rage. There was Berrin Torolsan JL towards the Grand Bazaar, there is a narrow cobbled past Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi’s shop in sheikhdoms of the Arabian Peninsula in the political discussion and educated gossip of follows the aromatic trail street lined with fishmongers, shops, fruit and vegetable rt, O l the stream of this human traffic coming in 15th century. Despite opposition from all kinds in these hothouses of civilisation of freshly roasted stalls and a small fountain. It is all very vivid, picturesque and and out of the Spice Bazaar. conservative and religious circles, coffee fuelled by caffeine. The price of a cup of crowded. But the people in the queue obviously became more and more popular throughout coffee was one penny and the coffee shops coffee to Istanbul's As you fight your way through the crowds of shoppers, think it is worth the effort. Mehmet Efendi the Middle East until it eventually reached which sprang up around colleges were most famous coffee-man ' avoiding porters bent under enormous loads and delivery boys started his business here in 1871 and his Cairo, Syria and Istanbul. known as penny universities. rattling their handcarts over the cobblestones, you will catch famous shop has given its name to the street, The Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi It was Britain’s economic policy that put the distinctive smell of freshly roasted coffee. which is called Tahmis Sokak. Tahmis is records in the 17th century that Istanbul had an end to thousands of London’s coffee Further up the hill this welcoming aroma grows stronger Arabic for roasted coffee. The shop is still a at that time quite a sizeable coffee trade: 300 shops. Britain was less successful at and leads you to the charming little coffee store of Kurukahveci family concern and the present owner is warehouses, 500 coffee dealers, 100 cultivating coffee in its colonies than the (ground coffee seller) Mehmet Efendi & Sons, purveyors of Mehmet Efendi’s grandson, Mehmet Bey. retailers and 55 coffee houses. Dutch and French. So the British threw their coffee to generations, identifiable by the queue of people on the Coffee has been popular in Turkey since The green beans were brought to weight behind tea, which grew well in India pavement outside as well as by the rich aroma. the middle of the 16th century. Originally Istanbul by sea from Yemen in the ships of and China. The British royal family adopted 24 And what a pavement it is, so thronged with people that from Yemen, and drunk there as a beverage Egyptian traders who also brought sugar, tea drinking to encourage the trade in this 25 FOOD

HOW TO PREPARE The only ingredients you need are water, COFFEE-MEN OF sugar, and very finely powdered coffee 9 Put one cup of water and one generously heaped teasponful of coffee ANOTHER CITY per person in a cezve, the long handle Turkish coffee pot.

9 For medium sweet (orta) coffee, add a teaspoonful of sugar Add more for The coffee business also runs in the family sweet (şekerli) coffee and none for plain with London’s most traditional purveyors (sade) coffee. of finely ground Turkish coffee, H. R. 9 Place on a low heat, stirring slowly.

Higgins & Sons, who like Kurukahveci 9 W h e n the coffee begins to rise, Mehmet Efendi & Sons are also into their remove from the heat, pour a little of third generation. Pictured above at their the froth into each pot and replace on Duke Street premises near Oxford Street the heat. rival beverage and tea gardens and another are (left) David Higgins, (right) Tony, his 9 Let It rise once more and share the exotic drink became fashionable. father, and (centre) Audrey, Tony Higgins’ rest of the coffee among the cups. For Even the preparation of Turkish coffee Turkish coffee, as with other coffees, sister. It was Tony and Audrey’s father H. so popular around 1750 was forgotten. coffee boiled is coffee spoiled. The art is R. Higgins who started the business in Moreover, as Samuel Pepys remarks: “the how not to lose the froth. 1942 as a wholesaler. In a small first-storey bitter black drink — coffee — is usually room in South Molton Street he packed served black. It is boiled with egg shells and coffee for merchants who had been sometimes mixed with mustard...” So there Turkish coffee is served very hot. Coffee bombed out of their premises. It was not may have been other reason’s for coffee’s fall boys when serving it traditionally put until the war ended that Higgins began the from grace than the switch in royal little lids on each cup. It should be sipped retailing business. The company now holds slowly and gently, taking care to inhale patronage. the Royal Warrant as suppliers of coffee to the fragrance and flavour But make sure I talked to the owner of Kurukahveci Her Majesty the Queen. The “Sultan you leave the sediment (telve) In the Mehmet Efendi’s coffee shop in the upstairs bottom of the cup. As the French w riter Blend” is Higgins’s recommended blend for Dufour (1622-87) warned: "It is only the room, where he keeps a collection of antique Turkish coffee. As at Kurukahveci Mehmet coffee mills, wooden coffee containers, scum of the people who swallow the Efendi’s, the coffee comes freshly ground grounds." roasting pans, fine porcelain cups and cevze The idea took off and soon other shops The coffee was excellent. While I was The Thirties look: the shop was in brown paper bags tied up with string. made from brass and copper. On the walls selling freshly ground coffee appeared in the sipping it I remembered the French traveller refurbished with art deco fittings They also mail orders abroad on request. there is a selection of the company’s old neighbourhood. Today, the coffee sold at Pouqueville’s reference in 1805 to a cup of in 1934 and, top left, coffee is still For details contact H. R. Higgins advertising posters, designed in the 1930s Mehmet Kurukahveci’s shop (his father coffee he drank in Istanbul. “A sip of nectar, ” sold in old-fashioned brown (Coffee-man) Ltd, 79 Duke Street, by the graphic designer ihap Hulusi, who adopted the title as a surname) is still served he said, “with a porphyritic essence floating paper bags London W1 (tel: 01-629 3913). also created the firm’s emblem. in old-fashioned brown paper bags, still upon the surface.” Like his famous forebear, the present warm, to the customers, who swarm like Mark Twain had a different experience owner is called Mehmet. “The way my bees on the pavement outside. when he came to Istanbul in 1867 and was grandfather made his name,” he says, “was Mehmet Bey and his younger brother served in a Turkish bath what he described by selling freshly ground coffee. Before, Hulusi are courteous young businessmen, as the worst beverage he had ever consumed people had always bought their coffee keen to preserve the shop’s traditions among non-Christian peoples. The cup was unroasted. They had always either roasted, despite the demands of expansion and small, the coffee black and thick with a mortared or ground in stone mills and sieved progress. The Tahmis Sokak establishment disgusting smell and taste, he complained. according to their individual tastes. employs 25 young assistants and there is In the bottom of the cup was a muddy “In 1871, when my grandfather took now a branch in Kadıköy on the Asian shore sediment. The grains got stuck in his throat over the family business, which had of Istanbul. Between them, the two shops and he had to cough and bark for an hour. Mr previously sold green coffee beans, he sell a ton of coffee a day. Twain was probably in a bad mood that day. guessed that people would find it more Looking at the photographs in his I thanked Mehmet Kurukahveci for his practical to buy their coffee ready- ground. album, taken when the shop was refurbished hospitality and information and wished him However, you need to use ground coffee as with its present art deco fittings in 1932, a and his successors good luck so that they soon as possible while it is still fresh. So he boy came in carrying two cups of frothy can fill Tahmis Sokak with the delicious had to make sure his customers got the best coffee, on an askı, a special coffee tray, one aroma of freshly roasted coffee for many quality coffee, straight out of the coffee- for me and one for Mehmet Bey, more generations. □ grinder, if possible still warm after accompanied by two glasses of water as

16 roasting.” custom demands. Berrin Torolsan is a graphic designer living in Istanbul. 27

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