Arabic Coffee: taste and tradition (1)

• A little background

It forms an important part of the Arabic hospitality and it is, a long with a fine type of date, the first thing Arabs serve to their guests. Therefore, there are a special etiquette on how to choose the coffee ingredients, make it, and how to serve it.  There are a lot of tradition Arabic poems that show in details these steps.  Moreover,  theses tradition has extended to afftect other tradition such Arabic negotiation, weeding and so on.As the Qatari researcher, Khalifa Alsyed said" Arabic coffee is the tittle(motto) for the Arabic hospitality.

As we can see, Arab appreciate Coffee for the the the hospitality , traditions and other great values it represents. It is important to note that drinking Coffee is a social activity in Arab countries, people usually gather and invite others to drink coffee and socialize. In Saudi Arabia, inviting people over for Coffee is the most social activity.

• The Traditional way to make Arabic Coffee:

First, we need to know that Arabic coffee differ from one place to another a little bit in color, taste. in Yemen, the color and taste is very light and as you go north it becomes more darker and stronger.

Originally, The old way to make Arabic coffee, Arabs still enjoy making Coffee this way when they go camping in desert,  need the following tools:

1- Originally, Arabic Coffee is prepared on an open fire, therefore  a good firewood  that smell good and with a little or no smoke was important. The famous types are : ALSAMR, ALARTA, and ALGHATH.

2-MEHMAS:  a metal tool used to roast the coffee beans over an open fire

3- NEJR: a metal cup-like tool used to ground the roasted coffee beans

 4-DALLAH(The Coffee pot): where Coffee is prepared in and there are different brand that were famous in the past such as: Alraslan( made in Syria), Albagdadia( made in Iraq), and Alorashia(Made in Mecca. Dallah came in two color: gold or Silver.

5- FENJAL: a very small cup used to drink the Arabic coffee ( still used until now)

There are other tools that were used to make Arabic coffee, however, the previous 5 tools  are the important ones.

Next time we will talk about the etiquette in serving and drinking coffee and then we will learn in detail how to make a authentic Arabic coffee