Turkish coffee and Zepter cup…
Among many bad things, the Turks (masters of the Balkans for centuries…) let us inherit some good ones… Turkish coffee, for one…
You can make a coffee in many ways: by percolation, infusion and even decoction… Turkish coffee (I think the Turks borowed it from the Arabs so maybe we should call it Arab coffee? But this is a dilema as difficult as the name of siphylis in the old times: the English called it “the French sikness” and the French “le mal italien” and the Italian the Spanish sickness…) so, Turkish coffee is a combination of infusion and percolation… Or a slow way to percolate it… I won’t yet describe the “ritual” but I would say that the Turkish coffee, super strong, super black and almost of muddy consistency is quite different from the transparent percolated pisswasser (those with some notion of German understand…) they usually call “coffee” here, in North America (where coffee is very hot, at least…) The Italian way – expresso, etc. – is more alike… A common thing with the Italian way of drinking coffee is that the Turkish one is drank from very small cups…
Here is my Zepter Turkish coffee cup, one of my most prized possessions…
ION VINCENT DANU, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
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About Café Crem
Café Crem was created by Miki and Kev Moore in 2007 with the intention of gathering like-minded artists, writers and musicians together around the coffee table to discuss and share thoughts, ideas, art, etc.
This initial desire has surpassed our wildest dreams with a myriad of collaborations taking place between the various members, creating pieces of work that simply would not exist without Café Crem.
Have a wander though in our different rooms:
“Cafe Literati”, the Literary Room
“Café L’Arte”, the Art Gallery
“Ca’ Puccini”, the Music Studio
and, last but not least,
“The MiniBar”, our creative space for our kids and teens!
You are all welcome.
Contact Miki at miki@goodaboom.com if you want to participate!
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Cafe Crem’s Video of The Month
“Soul Sketching”, by Susan Cornelis and Kev Moore
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Coffee puts the system under the strain of metabolizing a deadly acid-forming drug, depositing its insoluble cellulose, which cements the wall of the liver, causing this vital organ to swell to twice its proper size. In addition, coffee is heavily sprayed. (Ninety-two pesticides are applied to its leaves.) Diuretic properties of caffeine cause potassium and other minerals to be flushed from the body.
All this fear went away when I quit, and it was a book that inspired me to do it called The Truth About Caffeine by Marina Kushner. There are five things I liked about this book:
1) It details–thoroughly–the ways in which caffeine may damage your health.
2) It reveals the damage that coffee does to the environment. Specifically, coffee was once grown in the shade, so that trees were left in place. Then sun coffee was introduced, allowing greater yields but contributing to the destruction of rain forests. I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else.
3) It explains how best to go off coffee. This is important. If you try cold turkey, as most people probably do, the withdrawal symptoms will likely drive you right back to coffee.
4) Helped me find a great resource for the latest studies at CaffeineAwareness.org
5) Also, if you drink decaf you won’t want to miss this special free report on the dangers of decaf available at http://www.soyfee.com
Oh Janet, you spoiled my day! Luckily my milk coffee is still tasting delicious…
Miki
Danu…
I guess Janet was just scared when she saw the deep blackness of the coffee inside your wonderful cup…
I drank Turkish coffee for the first time 30 years ago in Germany, in a Turkish restaurant. The cup was so nice, I remember I bought some of them from the restaurant. I wished I had them still… You see, my love for coffee cups is (almost…) as old as myself!
The coffee (with much sugar!) tasted nice, but the first time I didn´t know any better and suddenly had the sediment in my mouth: awful!
In my Art Studio I work together with a Russian painter for paintings on commission. He says that In Russia they call “French salad” what we in France call “Russian salad”!
Miki
A lovely photo Danu….and Janet…phew! You just need to chill out, girl!
Speaking as a Rock musician of thirty years standing, who has steadfastly avoided the vices continually on offer in the form of drugs and alcohol, you can be certain that I will NOT deprive myself of my coffee! This Marina Kushner, guess she’s a Tea drinker, huh?
Jesus, Janet – take a couple of aspirin and elevate your feet.
Ion, this mug seems mighty close to your painting stuff. I can just see you dipping your brush into it now and then. Does that enhance the flavor.
Kevin – what do you mean no drugs or alcohol?
How about the groupies? You are ruining the image – I’m going to throw away my tour T shirt.
I’m glad my very modest post had risen such a powerful “storm”!
Well, Janet… we have do die someday, aren’t we? Of course too much coffeine is not good for you… but what is? I drunk only 2 cups per day…and no Pepsi, Colo or other poison where caffeine is much more important, cantitatively…
And I also drink green tea and all sort of aromatic tea (coriander infusion also…) and since I eat lots of banana (kind of crazy for a diabethical… but sometimes I have to eat brown sugar by teaspoon, when my sugar is too low…) I think my potassium it’s all right…
I just listen to a Lewis Black stand up on health in the US and even he was, of course, exagerating, he also spoke a few common sense truths…
Anyway, I’m not going to quit drinking coffee even if it kills me. If I could afford I would also drink from time to time some Glenfinch single malt and smoke a few joints from time to time (no nicotine, also… I just don’t aquired the taste…)
What to use to live until 115 and have no small pleasure in life? My grandfather drunk and smoked (what he did with the opposite sex I don’t know a lot but he had 13 children only with my granmother) and he died 85…
Thanks, kev! and miki, you know, I’m sure, that the sediment (what’s the english name for it? in Romanian we call it “zatz”) is used for devination… You drink you coffee, then turned your cup upside down and let the “zatz” do its thing… Then, a gipsy, or an amateur prophet can “read” your future in the forms and quirks of the sediment…
Yes, wr! It’s pretty close and it happened! but, you know, it’s not unheard of to use the coffee sediment (or even better, instant coffee, to draw and paint; I know a guy which live doing that…)
Hang on to that Tour T-shirt Bill, I have so many groupies I don’t know what to do with ‘em…I’ll send some your way!
Danu: Kevin says that the English word for sediment is sediment. I would say, he is lacking in imagination, or is just lazy, or the English have stolen the word from the French, as they have stolen everything else from us!!
How can one DRAW with instant coffee? The little pieces are quite tiny… You have a tip for me? By the way: do some people paint with strawberries too? It should work if my theory of staining is right…
By the way, Danu…in England, the Gypsys have always read the Tea-leaves… I remember, with the advent of the modern tea-bag, my Dad wondering whether all the fortune tellers would go out of business!
Well, miki, when I said “draw” I’ve ment with a pen, (à plume), with a cut reed or with a small brush – or Chinese – Japanese brush… Of course, you’ll have to make a quite strong infursion of Instant coffee…
Gypsies are a hard and very adaptable kind of people… Some of them are so adaptable, in Romania for instance, that most of the rich gypsies are ultra over obese and even more prone to “civilization” deseases than the main population… But I remember, when I was a child, they still came every spring-summer to camp near the river Cibin (not far away from where I lived…) Real nomad tziganes… artisans in cuivre and silver and gold… not all authentic… I even have some photos…
Isn’t it the word “dregs” the more specific equivalent for sediment? Just asking…