Why Isn't Turkish Sand-Brewed Coffee Filtered? How Fine Should Turkish Coffee Grind Be?

The Unfiltered Tradition: Why Turkish Coffee Keeps Its Grounds

Filter paper, filter cloth, and filter mesh are all common filtering tools in coffee preparation today. Their purpose is to filter out the grounds and give the coffee a cleaner texture. Yet despite how widely available filtering tools are, many coffee preparation methods still keep the grounds. Turkish coffee is a case in point: beyond its "never-ending" visual effect, it has won a following through its unconventional "drink with the grounds and dregs" approach.

Turkish coffee isn't unfiltered out of laziness or a failure to keep up with the times. It comes from a combination of its unique preparation methods, drinking habits, and cultural traditions. In the article "Why Turkish Coffee Never Ends?" that FrontStreet Coffee shared in January, we mentioned that the biggest difference between Turkish coffee and modern mainstream coffee preparation lies in its extraction method: boiling.

The Boiling Method

By "boiling" we mean that coffee powder is placed in a water-filled cooking vessel and continuously heated, which is completely different from today's mainstream methods of "pouring" and "steeping." Different as it is, the steps aren't really complex. For Turkish coffee, water and coffee powder go into a copper pot called a "Cezve," which is then placed on a sand bed for continuous heating. When the coffee slurry inside boils, Turks decide how to pour based on their brewing method: either letting the coffee boil three times before pouring it all at once, or pouring out one-third of the coffee each time it boils. Whichever method is chosen, the result is a rich black coffee.

Extremely Fine Grind

Anyone who has had Turkish coffee knows its preparation time is actually quite short: only about ten seconds from when the coffee begins to boil until extraction is complete. If the grind were as coarse as pour-over coffee, it would be hard to extract a rich black coffee, even counting the heating time before the boil. Turkish coffee therefore uses an extremely fine grind, fine enough to be described as powder particles. Many assume its fineness is similar to espresso powder, but Turkish coffee powder is in fact even finer than espresso powder.

Rubbed between the fingers, espresso powder feels somewhat grainy, while Turkish coffee powder feels almost completely smooth, with a flour-like texture. Each particle has a diameter of about 100-150 microns, which we would classify as extremely fine powder, and that is why the right side of the image above shows the "Turkish coffee powder" sifted by FrontStreet Coffee. On average, one coffee bean can be broken down into 15,000 to 35,000 particles of this size. Because of the extremely fine grind, Turkish coffee boils into a rich black coffee in a short time, and it can be enjoyed without filtering the grounds.

Natural Sedimentation

Coffee powder begins to settle at the bottom of the cup after absorbing enough moisture, and extremely fine powder absorbs water more quickly. This drives rapid water absorption and the release of flavor compounds within a short time, after which the powder settles at the bottom. When the coffee finishes brewing and is poured from the copper pot, some powder pours into the cup along with the liquid because of the boiling and tumbling. These grounds in the cup settle quickly too. By the time the coffee reaches a drinkable temperature, the grounds have long since settled at the bottom, and as long as you don't tilt the cup too much, it is almost impossible to drink large amounts of them.

Of course, it isn't entirely impossible to drink some grounds; there is still a certain probability. It doesn't matter if you do, because the amount of floating grounds is small, and since the particles are powder-like, their presence doesn't significantly hurt the texture of Turkish coffee. On the contrary, they add richer flavor and a more mellow mouthfeel, acting as an auxiliary ingredient that "adds color and flavor" to the cup. At this point some may ask: "In the past it may have been a lack of filtering tools that left the coffee unfiltered, but why does Turkish coffee still choose not to filter the grounds now that filtering tools are widely available?"

Fortune Telling Tradition

That brings us to another unique feature of Turkish coffee. Because the tradition of not filtering the grounds has lasted so long, it gave rise to another highly representative and mysterious function of Turkish coffee: fortune telling. When people finish the Turkish coffee in their cups, the grounds originally settled at the bottom are revealed. They then place a saucer over the cup and turn it upside down to dry the grounds at the bottom, and perform fortune telling by interpreting the patterns the grounds form.

The emergence of this custom made "preserving the grounds" an indispensable part of Turkish coffee. People try to read various kinds of life guidance from the patterns, and also dispel bad omens by placing a ring or coin on the inverted cup, which adds an element of fun to the experience.

Conclusion

In summary, you now understand why FrontStreet Coffee says Turkish coffee still keeps its grounds today: it is the combined result of its unique preparation methods, drinking habits, and cultural traditions.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Turkish coffee's extremely fine grind and short, intense boil reward beans with body and sweetness, and FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate fits beautifully. With low acidity, a balanced and smooth mouthfeel, rich nut and cocoa aromas, and clear caramel sweetness, it dissolves readily and gives a thick, mellow cup with no astringency, whether you brew it solo or with milk.

For a deeper, more intense result, FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling is a strong choice. The Gayo Mountain beans are even and full with a low defect rate, and after medium-dark roasting they give a clean, full-bodied black coffee with almost no herbal note, plus chocolate, caramel, and spice flavors that stand up well to the boiling method.