On a visit to Turkey in 2014, I had the pleasure of enjoying the traditional way in which coffee is brewed, even today. No matter the medium of heat, the the process is neither solitary nor hastened, yet is very simplistic with most basic of cooking tools. Coal or heated sand is used to cook the coffee with water and the only tool used is the distinctly shaped vessel with the long handle.

But, beyond the technicalities, it is the ritualization of the process that struck a chord in me. The making of a traditional coffee is a communal process. It is neither an individual brewing experience nor one done in bulk. But, rather it is a many to many process. Coffee is cooked in individual vessels but as many vessels as people gathered are placed on the medium of heat.