QAHWA
LEBANON | SYRIA | JORDAN | PALESTINE | TURKEY
Whenever you are offered Turkish coffee in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Palestine, you will be asked how you like it. If you want your coffee without sugar, you will ask for it to be murr (meaning “bitter” in Arabic). If you like it a little sweet, you will ask for it to be wassat (meaning “medium” in Arabic) or mazbout (meaning “correct” in Arabic), and if you want it really sweet, you will ask for it to be helou (meaning “sweet” in Arabic). I know only one of the Turkish words describing the degrees of sweetness, and that is sada, which means “plain” or “without sugar.”
Turkish coffee is always “cooked” to the taste of the guest, except when there is a funeral or a sad or solemn occasion when only bitter coffee is served.
1. To prepare coffee medium-sweet, measure 1 teaspoon of very finely ground Turkish coffee and ½ teaspoon sugar for each demitasse (about ¼ cup) coffee cup of water. If you want it sweet, increase the quantity of sugar to 1 teaspoon. Put the water in the rakweh (a special coffee pot with a protruding flat spout to make pouring the coffee easy) or in a small saucepan, preferably with a spout. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil. Once the water has come to a boil, stir in the coffee and sugar, reduce the heat to low, and wait until the coffee foams up. Take off the heat as soon as it starts rising, let settle, then return to the heat. Remove as soon as the coffee foams up again and repeat another two or three times, until there is no more foam. Some people like their coffee foamy and they take it off the heat after the first or second foaming.
2. If you don’t have the specific small, narrow cups with a handle that are used for Turkish coffee, use espresso or demitasse cups. Arrange the cups on a tray, then pour the coffee into them and pass the tray around to the guests. Rural people also use round cups with no handle in which they pour a very small amount of bitter coffee, which they call shaffeh (meaning “one sip”). These cups are the same ones used for the Arabian Coffee.