Yazdi Coffee

A hot coal is dropped into the pot, and the coffee is then strained through silk.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 200 g coffee beans, roasted dark and ground coarse
• 3 litres water
• 300 g sugar
• 4 tablespoons rose water
• 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 1 piece of lump charcoal, for the pot

Method

1. A HOT COAL IS DROPPED INTO THE POT, AND THE COFFEE IS THEN STRAINED THROUGH SILK. Its article gives the sequence as seven numbered steps and these are the fifth and sixth of them: once the coffee has brewed, a hot coal is added to it, and it is filtered through silk cloth to remove impurities. The coal is a real step and not a flourish -- a piece of lump charcoal taken glowing from a fire and dropped straight in, where it hisses and throws up a head of foam. What it leaves is a faint smokiness and, by the article's account, a cleaner cup. Then silk, which is finer than any paper or metal filter and takes out the suspended grounds that four hours of boiling will have broken down to dust.
2. IT SIMMERS FOR FOUR TO SIX HOURS AND IT IS STIRRED THE WHOLE TIME. Its article says approximately four to six hours, requiring constant stirring to stop it boiling over. This is not brewing in any ordinary sense -- it is a reduction. The result is black, thick and bitter before the sugar goes near it.
3. THE GROUNDS ARE DISSOLVED IN THE WATER, NOT STEEPED IN IT. Its article's wording is that the ground coffee is dissolved in water in a large copper pot and brought to a vigorous boil. So everything goes in cold together and comes up to the boil as one, in the widest heavy pan you have.
4. THE BEANS ARE GROUND AND THEN ROASTED, IN THAT ORDER. Its article lists grinding on mill stones first and roasting second. Coarse rather than fine: four hours of boiling will do the extracting, and fine grounds make the sludge at the bottom impossible to filter.
5. THE SUGAR GOES IN AFTER THE FILTERING, AND IT SIMMERS AGAIN. Three hundred grams for three litres, then back on the heat until it reaches the consistency you want. Sugar added at the start would caramelise and catch over four hours.
6. THE ROSE WATER AND CARDAMOM GO IN JUST BEFORE SERVING. Its article says exactly that -- infused just before serving for aroma. Both are volatile and neither would survive being added earlier.
7. IF YOU WILL NOT LIGHT A COAL, SAY SO RATHER THAN PRETEND. Without it you have a long-reduced sweet spiced coffee, which is good, and you have left out the step the dish is known by. There is no substitute offered here because the article names none.
8. IT IS SERVED IN SMALL CUPS AT MOURNING GATHERINGS. Its article has it served during Muharram in religious gathering places, distributed by a servant who has performed ablution, in small cups like those used for Turkish coffee, and usually with Yazdi cake -- which has its own page here. It was registered on the country's national intangible cultural heritage list in July 2019.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes