[9] Most people who have travelled in the Levant are enthusiastic in
their praises of the Turkish coffee which they drank out there. There
is no reason why coffee prepared in the Turkish style should not become
popular here. There is no difficulty about making it That the coffee
may have the delicious flavour it has in the Levant, the beans must be
freshly roasted and ground very fine. The water must be boiled in a tin
or copper coffee-pot To supply, say, four or five persons with coffee
in tiny cups, two or three teaspoonfuls of the powder should be put
into the pot while the water is actually boiling therein. Some people
do not like sugar in their coffee, but if sugar is required it should
be put into the boiling water and allowed to melt before the coffee is
added. Great sweetness is not appreciated by connoisseurs in coffee
drinking. When the ground coffee is added to the boiling water, the pot
should be taken off the fire and the coffee stirred up in the water
with a teaspoon. Then it should be put on the fire again until the
froth rises up. It is then poured into the cups. It is better to pour
out the coffee slowly, placing the pot on the fire at short intervals,
and thus getting more froth for pouring out into the cups, as the taste
of the coffee is supposed to be better with the yellowish froth on the
surface. It is on account of this idea that greedy people in Turkey
choose those cups that have the most froth when coffee is handed round
on a tray, leaving those with less to the others who are waiting their
turn to be served.
[10] The first Turkish Ambassador in London was Agah Effendi, a
Mussulman, who came over to this country in 1793. The following
paragraph is translated from his memoirs:--
"We proceeded to the village of Chelsea, which is about an hour's
distance from London. The King's Master of Ceremony came and
felicitated us on our arrival, and conveyed the compliments of the
King. The ceremony of our reception having been fixed for the following
day, I sent on the presents. Next day the state carriages came. I
entered one that was drawn by four horses; with me were a nobleman and
the Master of the Ceremony. My suite were in the other carriages along
with some court officials.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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