Sala'am honored friend! This is an instructional document on how to provide guests during a hofla or similar social event with middle-eastern coffee. It is not necessarily a period recipe, but rather a "reasonable attempt." It is my hope that by following these instructions we can introduce more people to very fine coffee and help enhance their over all experience during social gatherings. I have had the honor of learning from some very wise men as well as having the patience of kind guests who have allowed me to practice my skills on them during my learning process, which inshallah, will never end.
There is no one right way. This is more of an art than a science, at least the way I brew it. It might be that you could figure out a system of timers and measurement, but I find you can do just as well by saying, "It's a cold night, a slightly sweeter drink will be better appreciated" and then heaping your spoonfuls of sugar.
Serves 9
Set up your serving tray(s) with your coffee cups and cookies. Try to arrange the tray so there are both cookies and cups. Either place the cups around the outside edge, and the cookies in the center, or alternate cookies and cups around the edge.
Add your water into your Ibrik first, because, as the poet says, "What the wind brings together, blows apart, what the water brings together, stays together." Next, add the sugar and cardamom. Gently spoon the coffee onto the top of the sugar water. Do NOT stir the coffee. It's important that the coffee floats on top of the water, and makes a seal.
Place over medium to high heat until the steam begins to foam up through the grounds. It's easy to fall into impatience and turn the heat a bit high, but slower is better. However, it is necessary to fully boil the coffee. (Hopefully I will be able to provide a movie that shows what this should look like.)
Remove the Ibrik from the heat until the foam has a chance to settle. Return to the heat until it foams again. A teaspoon of the foam from the second boil may be placed into the coffee cups at this time. Then return the Ibrik to the fire for the final boil. This should be more of a rolling boil than a foam up, as the previous two boils were. If it looks like its going to foam up again, slide the coffee to the side of the flame until it dies down a little, then gently slide it back towards the flame and let it heat up more slowly. Once the rolling boil has been achieved, divide the coffee into the 9 cups and serve immediately. The coffee will be too hot to drink; this is a good sign to your guest. You might even warn them that it is very hot, but that is bragging.
An Ibrik is a Turkish coffee pot. It's shaped with a narrow neck to help seal the sugar water under the coffee until the water foams up and through the coffee. Its fine to have one on hand, but they seem to come in rather small sizes for an American event. I would recommend the standard blue coffee pot you can get at the camping section of most department stores instead and save the classic Ibrik for more intimate occasions. Remove the lid and the percolator from the coffee pot.
A small flash light, especially one hanging on a cord from your neck, is very useful if you are working (as I normally do) at night while you are camping. You can use it to check the coffee to watch for it to boil. CONSTANT VIGILANCE is the key. This coffee will boil over and cook fast to the stove and the side of the pot the instant you turn your back.
A gas stove or a camp stove to brew coffee on, if someone does it on the camp fire, let me know, I've been curious if any of the smoke ends up flavoring the coffee.
Pot Holder will only be needed if you use the standard blue camp coffee pot. With an Ibrik, the long handle will save you from the heat.
Fancy demitasse cups are lovely, but I usually end up with cheap styrofoam cups. Get the smallest size you can find.
You can pick up a nice plain tray from just about anywhere, or find some nice charger plates from your local big lots. If you end up with smaller trays that won't hold all nine cups, try to arrange things in an odd number on each tray.
You should serve some sweet with your coffee, I use honey cookies purchased from my local eastern European store. Turkish delight would also work well, as do Archway apple cinnamon cookies.
Some folks recommend distilled water, others go with spring water. I like Cooper's well water the best (just joking, I use bottled spring water from the giant eagle.) 9 cups is about a quart of water, each serving is around 4 ounces. Again, adjust serving sizes by your environment.
Sugar and cardamom are both easy, just buy whatever is cheapest. You can use Splenda instead of sugar, it will still brew correctly. Folks get real fussy about using cardamom as fresh as possible. I can't tell the difference, so I just save money. Maybe if I grew my own or had a source for super fresh stuff I could tell the difference, but this makes a good flavor. Other spices are some times recommended, most notably cinnamon and nutmeg. I like the simplicity and flavor of just using the cardamom. The coffee has a complex enough flavor that when you mix in the sugar and cardamom, anything else will hide some of the subtleties.
Coffee: The heart of the matter. I use Tanzanian Peaberry coffee, freshly roasted from The Cheese Shoppe in State College, PA. This is a very dark roast coffee with a deliciously complex flavor. I finely grind it in my electric grinder at home before the event. It's important to note, you'll need to take breaks often (About 10 minutes between each batch). Grinding coffee as fine as you need it ground is very important. It must be powder fine, like the finest dust you've ever seen. Much more finely ground than espresso or what the big commercial grinders can do at the store. Generally, when I grind, it cakes a little bit to the sides as I go. If it cakes too much, I know I've put too much coffee in the grinder; however, what cakes up is still a fine enough grind to use. It should feel smooth when rubbed between your fingers, not like sand.
The three most common variations that I'm asked to provide are sweeter, less sweet, and diabetic friendly. I would also love to try honey or unrefined sugar instead of standard cane sugar.
For sweeter, I double, or even triple the sugar used to brew the coffee -- I double if only one person has asked for sweet coffee, triple if I have more than one person that likes it sweet. If I'm serving the drummer Jas, I triple it and then place two teaspoons of sugar into the cup before I pour the coffee. You'll find that the coffee is more likely to want to foam under these conditions. You might want to turn the heat down a bit, or just hold the pot near the fire, instead of directly over the center of the fire.
Less Sweet coffee I do by halving the amount of sugar -- one teaspoon to two cups, instead of one per cup.
Sugar free coffee can be made with Splenda or other similar heat stable sugar substitutes. The folks that I fed this coffee to were kind enough to say they greatly enjoyed it. The behavior of the coffee seemed to be the same as when real sugar was used, so you can follow the same instructions I believe. I would recommend cutting back slightly from the amount used -- level teaspoons instead of big heaping ones. Subtlety is better than over powering.