Making Serbian Coffee

Before we start, I want to talk about what we are making. Some people would say the thing I’m talking about making is Turkish Coffee (турска кафа). Some people would call it Serbian Coffee (Србија кафа). I don’t think it is turkish coffee so I’m going to call it Serbian coffee. Why? Well, go have a look at these directions for making turkish coffee then compare them to what I’m doing. You’ll see differences all the way through…starting with the pot.

If you are interested, read more

 

Serbian Coffee Step #01 Step 1: Get out your ђезва (jesva) and put it on the stove.
Serbian Coffee Step #02 Step 2: Get our your demi type cup. The American sized coffee cup is shown for comparison.
Serbian Coffee Step #03 Step 3: Get our your coffee. This isn’t normal Maxwell House or Folgers either. Well, I guess it is…it is normal coffee beans they are just ground fine. Very fine. Very Very fine. No…even finer than that. Think coffee baby powder and that is about right.
Serbian Coffee Step #4 Step 4: Measure the water using a cup.
Serbian Coffee Step #05 Step 5: Put it in the pot.
Serbian Coffee Step #06 Step 6: Wipe up what you spilled while trying to pour and take a picture all at the same time.
Serbian Coffee Step #07 Step 7: Add sugar (if you want it) from your really cool sugar pourer thingee that gives you a little at a time. You can have it: слатка (slatka — sweet) средља (sredlja — mid grade sweet) горка (gorka — no sugar) I prefer mine with no sugar
Serbian Coffee Step #08 Step 8: Get out your spoon. If you are in the US, you’ll have to get a small spoon…perhaps 3/4 of a teaspoon or something. The spoon on the far right is one of Lydia’s baby spoons. On the left is a 1 dinar coin (about the size of a nickel). These are shown for comparison sake.
Serbian Coffee Step #09 Step 9: When we get to that point, this is about how much coffee you’ll use per cup. Just leave it in the bag for now.
Serbian Coffee Step #10 Step 10: Turn the burner on under your pot. Wonder why they don’t make the burners smaller. Or at least have a way you can turn on half of it. The pots are so small and electricity is so expensive…I wonder. Oh well. Just chalk that up to one of those that isn’t how they do it times and go on to the next step.

Note: Later on, I got a small gas burner that fit the jezva better and boiled the water faster.

Serbian Coffee Step #11 Step 11: Wait. Look out the window and watch it rain (again).
Serbian Coffee Step #12 Step 12: Look at the pot. is it boiling (or almost boiling yet)? Nope. Ok…go do something else for a bit more.
Serbian Coffee Step #13 Step 13: Forget that a watched pot never boils. It has to be getting close. Check again.
Serbian Coffee Step #14 Step 14: It is finally boiling. You aren’t going for a rolling boil away the water in 2 minutes boil here. More just a nice simmer almost boil boil. Does that make sense? I hope so because I don’t know any other way to explain it.
Serbian Coffee Step #15b Step 15: Add the coffee. Refer back to step 9 to see how much. Just dump it right in the pot. Yep…no filter or anything.
Serbian Coffee Step #16 Step 16: Stir the coffee in. It should foam a bit.
Serbian Coffee Step #17b Step 17: Clean up the mess you made while trying to get the coffee out of the bag and into the pot and take a picture all at the same time.
Serbian Coffee Step #18 Step 18: See that foam. You want that. That’s good stuff.
Serbian Coffee Step #19 Step 19: Pour it into the cup(s). Pour fast so each cup gets foam but not too fast. You want each cup to get roughly the same amount of foam.
Serbian Coffee Step #20 Step 20: Sit back and enjoy your cup of coffee. See the foam? That is about right. It would be better if it covered up the top of the cup, but…oh well..
Serbian Coffee Step #21 Step 21: WAIT! WAIT! Oh man…did you drink the whole cup? Quick…before you do anything else, go get a glass of water and rince the grounds out of your mouth. This isn’t Maxwell House (or is it Folgers?)!! Remember…this stuff hasn’t been filtered…you don’t want to drink the sludge in the bottom of the cup.

[Update 06-14-2008 10:10:01] I tried to make moca serb coffee this morning.  See how it went in this post .

[Update 2012-12-25 22:32:17] Recategorized the article and added the read more section.

[Update 2013-02-05 06:55:42] I redid the pictures so they were larger.  Also, if you try this and want something between this and filter coffee, why not try a french press coffee?

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