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Turkish coffee

Beans for Turkish coffee are ground or pounded to the finest possible powder, finer than for any other way of preparation. Preparation of Turkish coffee consists of immersing the coffee grounds in water which is most of the time hot but not boiling for long enough to dissolve the flavoursome compounds. While prolonged boiling of coffee gives it an unpleasant "cooked" or "burnt" taste, very brief boiling does not, and bringing it to the boil shows without guesswork that it has reached the appropriate temperature.

In Turkey, four degrees of sweetness are used. The Turkish terms and approximate amounts are as follows: sade (plain; no sugar), az şekerli (little sugar; half a level teaspoon of sugar), orta şekerli (medium sugar; one level teaspoon), and çok şekerli (a lot of sugar; one and a half or two level teaspoons). The coffee and the desired amount of sugar are stirred until all coffee sinks and the sugar is dissolved. Following this, the spoon is removed and the pot is put on moderate heat; if too high, the coffee comes to the boil too quickly, without time to extract the flavour. No stirring is done beyond this point, as it would dissolve the foam. Just as the coffee comes to the boil the pot is removed from the heat. It is usually kept off the heat for a short time, then brought to the boil a second and a third time, then the coffee is poured into the cups. Getting the thickest possible layer of foam is considered the peak of the coffee maker's art. One way to maximise this is to pour slowly and try to lift the pot higher and higher as the pouring continues. Regardless of these techniques, getting the same amount of foam into all cups is hard to achieve, and the cup with the most foam is considered the best of the lot.