Thomas in LA
by Thomas Golubic

(from Ground Control Issue #1)

One of the nice things about living in Los Angeles is that you don't really need to board a plane to become immersed in another culture. With so many restaurants in town perfectly replicating the complex and delicious meals from their respective homelands, you can travel the world on a tank of gas or a bus pass.

With this in mind, I decided to invite friends and acquaintances from around the globe to some LA restaurants with the hope that I could learn more about the world's coffee drinking practices. I began by calling my friend and coffee-loving compadre Kemal, born in Ankara Turkey and well-versed in Turkish history, he is the perfect coffee tour-guide.

We met for lunch at a favorite local Greek restaurant. I had heard that Turkish soldiers in the Ottoman empire had been largely responsible for bringing coffee to Europe and asked Kemal to tell me about it.

"You know, it was actually the officers of the Ottoman empire, aristocrats, who did it." he told me. "Turkey was really a tea-drinking country, but the aristocracy drank coffee. Their method was to boil very fine-ground coffee and drink it straight - no milk, but you could add sugar later. When the Turks withdrew from Vienna in 1683, they left their precious coffee behind."

I shared with Kamal what I had learned from my dad regarding Turkish coffee. In Croatia in its early years within Yugoslavia, he told me how Turkish coffee became part of the culture when brought to the Balkans. We had been drinking 'Turska Kava' (Turkish Coffee) at a Croatian restaurant when he came out with this bit of wisdom. "Coffee was perhaps the one thing that all the republics of Yugoslavia had in common," He told me. "Coffee was prepared across the region in the same manner, which was based on the Turkish coffee model. Only in Serbia was it different, where you would actually boil the sugar in the coffee instead of adding it later. As far as I know, only the Greeks follow the same method."

Kemal added that in some parts of Southern Turkey, people still drink coffee the old fashioned way by sipping it while sucking on a lump of sugar. "Traveling from south to north, you can see the coffee drinking tradition evolve. In the Southern Balkans, the sugar comes first, then the coffee is sipped with it. In Eastern Balkans, coffee and sugar are boiled together. When you get to the Western areas they make the coffee first and add sugar in later."

I contributed one last anecdote from Dad. Back in 1967 he was in Abu Dhabi at a ceremonial horse race in which Sheik Zaid, head of the country, was in attendance. "I saw that he was drinking coffee from a massive silver 'coffee arabica' which is an elegant and ornate chalice used to serve coffee during special occasions. I asked my colleague to check with one of the Sheik's advisors, who was sitting nearby, what exotic coffee the Sheik was drinking in this beautiful ceremonial bowl. The advisor saw my eager face and turned to me proudly and said, "Nescafe." It was quite fashionable at the time and though highly inferior to any of the local coffee, it was a status symbol. Prestige over taste, go figure."

Wanting to cap off my meal with Kemal on a high note I ordered coffee, making a rather egregious culinary and cultural faux pas in the process: I asked our waiter for a 'Turkish' coffee with our baklava. The waiter, an otherwise friendly man, raised one fuzzy eyebrow like a muppet risen from the evil spirit world and sternly asked me if I would like to rephrase the question.

I looked over at Kemal, quickly caught my gaffe, apologized, and asked if a 'Greek' coffee and baklava would not be out of the question. The waiter unarched his brow and in a kinder tone explained that people who ask for 'Turkish' coffee in his restaurant are often charged double, sometimes ignored, or suffer even worse. Despite the stumble, our steaming coffees arrived soon after.

I let the coffee grains settle, tilted the cup back and let the sweet dark fluid run into my mouth. Glorious.

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