The key thing about ‘Armenian’ coffee is – it’s not ‘Turkish’ coffee. Never mind, that most of the world calls the exact same type of coffee – Turkish coffee…
This high tech gadget called ‘Jazzve’ is instrumental in making your ‘Armenian’ coffee a success. It must be used and old. The handle is often wooden and burned. You can tell at once that it has seen a lot of coffee flow through its belly.
In the old Soviet times everybody had a jazzve and an environmentally friendly manual coffee grinder. Those are gone nowadays – and people prefer to grind coffee by large electronic grinders when buying it. There are also pre-packaged ground coffee sorts, but the common belief is that it’s not really coffee… with accompanying horror stories about how they put ground metal and mix it with burnt soya powder to make it heavy.
The recipe is simple. One small cup of water, one teaspoonful of coffee and half-teaspoonful of sugar. Put it in the jazzve. Turn on the gas and wait till it starts to boil.
I usually spill some coffee and sugar around when making coffee and have to wipe all around the kitchen. I also always leave the teaspoon in the jazzve. Naturally, it heats up. When the coffee is ready, I always try to mix the contents of the jazzve with the teaspoon and always burn my fingers… that, however, never spoils my mood and love for the good-old ‘Armenian’ coffee, commonly known around the world as the ‘Turkish’ coffee.
I like to think of myself as a person with an open mind, so if you have any special touches to making the perfect ‘Armenian’ coffee, I’ll greatly appreciate your advice.
hehe and some even called greek coffee!
you can’t argue with none of the 3 groups mentioned!!
Yep, I heard about the Greek coffee and Jewish coffee too… I guess you don’t need to argue, as long as the coffee is good and comes from a decent Brazilian, Colambian or Ethiopian blend… Arabika or Robusta 🙂
Greek coffee is different. The coffee beans are not roasted dark – they are light brown color, and the taste, obviously, is different. It is mostly drunk without sugar called ‘sketo’ (plain) and is chased with a glass of cold water.
My jazzve is almost new. I have no patience for heating it up like that. I put the coffee grounds and water in a 12 ounce (350 ml) mug and microwave it. But my coffee grinder is genuine manual device from Turkey.
Yes, I drink a lot of coffee.
Microwave!? Wow! That was a high-tech way of making coffee! 😀
I’ve heard the most proper way to make the Armenian coffee is to have it reach a boil three times, at least. Have you noticed any difference in taste between the microwave technique vs the jazzve technique, and do you use the same grind for both?
I do the microwave method during the week and use less coffee and no sugar so it is a milder taste.
The jazzve method is reserved for leisure time like weekends so it tastes better – I put more coffee in it and use sugar – and use the recipe that Observer wrote above. When you boil three times, you don’t get the ‘ser’ or the froth on top. I prefer with ser so I don’t really boil it.
Where can I purchase a jassve? Can I buy this on the internet?
http://natashascafe.com/html/foodncoffee.html
A very useful link. Thanks Nazarian.
I was taught to have the water reach a rolling boil before i added the ground surj-but to add the sugar in it with the water ( before boil).
do it both ways–anyone notice a difference in thickness/taste between putting grounds in with the water and sugar versus after the water/sugar reaching a rolling boil ?
I also do the three times on and off as well
Excellent ideas here, have emailed my mum so expect a big reply!!