Coffee isn't a love. It's a necessity. I much prefer the taste of tea, but sometimes the caffeine just doesn't cut it. When you need a real jolt, there's only one place to turn. Let me first say, I'm no coffee aficionado. On weekends, I might brew a pot of Dunkin' Donuts in my grandparents' old electric coffeemaker with the mismatched pot, obviously from some other set, since it never sits quite right in the machine. I might also venture to Starbucks, but mostly because it's the best atmosphere near work (but not at work) to sit with your laptop. I often get the café misto, because it reads the most like Spanish coffee (dark and strong with steamed milk), but never ends up tasting like it. Maybe partially because you're not sitting with your feet in the sand at a table on the coast of southern Spain. True that.
I'll tell you one thing I have learned: Coffee is just as much of an art, if not more so, than tea. There. I said it. But it didn't dawn on me until a couple of Greek friends, Angeliki and Jorge, painstakingly instilled in me their brewing process.
During our semester in Bilbao, Spain, we shared meals, laughs, drinks, and our own respective cultures. We had just feasted on a delicious potato gratin prepared by our friend, Mathilde, from France, followed by crepes--a recipe she knew by heart from her grandmother. I mistakenly mentioned after dinner how much I enjoyed the coffee in Spain. Slap me on the wrist! I was put to task with how hard it was to find a decent bean, a decent pot, even, to brew it in and that it held no comparison to Greek coffee (you'll find me hard-pressed to say a bad word about Spanish coffee, but I can assure you that this can hold its own). That's when they showed us their art.
You need only one thing, really: a briki (or Greek coffee pot)...and a little demitasse cup, too! It feels more authentic using Greek ground coffee, but supposedly any bean will do, it just has to be very finely ground into a powder, more finely ground than what we are used to here in the states because the grounds or "powder" are put directly in the water and never strained out. When Angeliki and Jorge's moms came to visit, we were not only treated to a delicious Greek meal (one entire day in the making), but I was gifted a briki and bag of coffee, flown straight to Spain from Greece. And even luckier for me, after running out of coffee, my friends flew to Greece for vacation and brought me back more bags of the stuff! Unfortunately, I don't yet know where to find it in the states, but when/if I do see it, I'll update here.
I'll tell you one thing I have learned: Coffee is just as much of an art, if not more so, than tea. There. I said it. But it didn't dawn on me until a couple of Greek friends, Angeliki and Jorge, painstakingly instilled in me their brewing process.
During our semester in Bilbao, Spain, we shared meals, laughs, drinks, and our own respective cultures. We had just feasted on a delicious potato gratin prepared by our friend, Mathilde, from France, followed by crepes--a recipe she knew by heart from her grandmother. I mistakenly mentioned after dinner how much I enjoyed the coffee in Spain. Slap me on the wrist! I was put to task with how hard it was to find a decent bean, a decent pot, even, to brew it in and that it held no comparison to Greek coffee (you'll find me hard-pressed to say a bad word about Spanish coffee, but I can assure you that this can hold its own). That's when they showed us their art.
You need only one thing, really: a briki (or Greek coffee pot)...and a little demitasse cup, too! It feels more authentic using Greek ground coffee, but supposedly any bean will do, it just has to be very finely ground into a powder, more finely ground than what we are used to here in the states because the grounds or "powder" are put directly in the water and never strained out. When Angeliki and Jorge's moms came to visit, we were not only treated to a delicious Greek meal (one entire day in the making), but I was gifted a briki and bag of coffee, flown straight to Spain from Greece. And even luckier for me, after running out of coffee, my friends flew to Greece for vacation and brought me back more bags of the stuff! Unfortunately, I don't yet know where to find it in the states, but when/if I do see it, I'll update here.
To finally get to business! For each cup you want to make, add that amount of water (a cup-full) to the briki and for each cup, measure a heaping teaspoon of coffee and a half teaspoon of sugar (but this is to your liking--go heavy because the coffee is strong). Place the briki on the burner over medium heat. You want to let the coffee slowly come to a boil to extract the maximum flavor from the beans. As it starts to heat up, watch it closely. The briki acts as a funnel and as the mixture heats it will rapidly foam and rise up (see the start of it in the second picture above). Remove it from the heat just before it overflows and pour a bit into each cup. You want to divide the (1) liquid coffee, (2) foam, and (3) coffee grounds evenly between each cup, so go back and forth between them a few times. I get a bit impatient at times and I let the coffee heat up too quickly here so the foam didn't get quite as thick as it should have, but you can see a bit floating in my cup above (alongside some spilled coffee).
What you've come to is the heart and soul of Greek coffee: the grounds that settle at the bottom of each cup. When you've finished your cup and you have a little sludge of sorts at the bottom, swirl it around and quickly turn your cup upside down, place it on the saucer, and wait. Unfortunately, I'm no coffee reader. It's a skill passed down through families, but someone trained in this art will be able to flip your cup over and tell you your future based on the patterns left on the insides of the cup. I'd have taken a picture of mine, but frankly, I don't need any of you telling me how my future is shaping up. Check out your own and the true "art" of Greek coffee.
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