There’s a little culinary alchemy happening in this video shot in Aqaba, Jordan. It involves coffee and sand. And “Brother Gantry” on Reddit has it all figured out. He explains:
He’s brewing coffee using techniques traditionally used to make Turkish Coffee...
Filling each of those vessels (called a cezve) partway is water, very finely ground coffee, and possibly sugar. Because this is happening in Jordan there might also be a little cardamon in there and/or no sugar.
Normally to make proper Turkish coffee you heat it to a point where it just begins to bubble, but under a rolling boil, so it begins to foam up into the neck of the cezve before reducing the heat and allowing the foam to die, repeating the process 3 or 4 times before the mixture is poured into small cups (fincan) and you’re left with a wonderfully strong, thick coffee with suspended grounds which quickly settle to the bottom. Sand over a flame traditionally used in the process as a sort of “adjustable double boiler” cups left on the surface stay warm and the heat used for brewing can be adjusted by the depth of the cezve in the sand without having to worry about the temperature of the heat source itself.
The guy in this video seems to be modifying a lot of the steps to make something like a “regular strength” coffee more theatrically using traditional equipment (e.g. he starts with much less ground coffee in the pot, judging from the color to begin with, overfilling it, not taking time to let the foam die down but pouring out some the brewing coffee into a cup to reduce the level, and pouring the results of a cezve made for several cups into a normal sized coffee cup instead).
Find more information on making Turkish Sand Coffee at Secret Coffee Drinks.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and share intelligent media with your friends. Or better yet, sign up for our daily email and get a daily dose of Open Culture in your inbox.
Related Content:
Honoré de Balzac Writes About “The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee,” and His Epic Coffee Addiction
Philosophers Drinking Coffee: The Excessive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard
“The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink”: An Ad for London’s First Cafe Printed Circa 1652
Beautiful.
The first time I came across this technique was in a Baku, Azerbaijan, basement bar, great entertainment as the foam sought escape!
I really would like to know what the name of this traditional equipment is. I’m looking for this stand with the”big- sand- wok”, to make the coffee in. I already found the Hovoli, but that’s not what I’m looking for. Thanks in advance!
Hello guys I really like to know all the equipment and the ingredients. Please help me I want try something that rare and people not usually do in Malaysia. Hope with this I can start open a business. Thanks
I try to make sand cofee but the sand is not hot enough therefore could you please tell me how to make sand hot. Do i have to by special equiptment for sand coffee