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

The Unfiltered Tradition: Why Turkish Coffee Retains Coffee Grounds

Filter paper, filter cloth, and filter nets are all filtering tools commonly used in coffee preparation today. Their purpose is to filter out coffee grounds, thereby giving coffee a cleaner texture. However, despite the widespread availability of filtering tools, many coffee preparation methods still preserve coffee grounds. Turkish coffee, for example, besides its "never-ending" visual effect, has gained considerable popularity through its unconventional "drinking with grounds and dregs" method.

The reason Turkish coffee isn't filtered is not due to laziness or failure to keep up with modern times. Rather, it results from a combination of its unique preparation methods, drinking habits, and cultural traditions. In the article "Why Turkish Coffee Never Ends?" shared by FrontStreet Coffee in January, it was 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 the current mainstream coffee extraction methods of "pouring" and "steeping." Though different, the preparation steps are actually not complex. For Turkish coffee, water and coffee powder are poured into a copper pot called a "Cezve," which is then placed in a sand bed for continuous heating. When the coffee slurry inside boils, Turks choose whether to pour the coffee 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

Those who have experienced Turkish coffee know that its preparation time is actually quite short—only about ten seconds from when the coffee begins to boil until extraction is complete. If the coffee grind were as coarse as pour-over coffee, it would be difficult to extract a rich black coffee, even including the heating time before boiling. Therefore, Turkish coffee uses an extremely fine grind—so fine, in fact, that it can be described as powder particles. Many might think it appears similar in fineness to espresso powder, but in reality, Turkish coffee powder is even finer than espresso powder!

When rubbed, you can feel some graininess from espresso powder, but 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 (which 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. Due to this extremely fine grind, Turkish coffee can be boiled into a rich black coffee in a short time. At the same time, because of the extremely fine grind, Turkish coffee can be enjoyed without filtering coffee grounds.

Natural Sedimentation

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

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

Fortune Telling Tradition

This brings us to another unique feature of Turkish coffee! Because the tradition of not filtering Turkish coffee grounds has been so long-standing, it has given rise to another highly representative and mysterious special function of Turkish coffee—fortune telling. When people finish drinking the Turkish coffee in their cups, the coffee grounds originally settled at the bottom are revealed. At this time, people will place a saucer over the cup and turn it upside down to dry the coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup, then perform fortune telling by interpreting the patterns formed by the coffee grounds.

The emergence of this custom made "preserving coffee grounds" an indispensable part of Turkish coffee. People try to see various aspects 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 that Turkish coffee still retains coffee grounds today because of the combined result of its unique preparation methods, drinking habits, and cultural traditions.

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