Do not even think about having a tea or coffee in a plastic cup. The difference in the way these begerages are consumed starts by the utensils used at the time of its elaboration. Everything is very tasteful, from the fancier to the sophisticated. The image below shows a device to serve tea.

Sophisticated as this set of cups in silver and crystal and many others, perhaps they have even graced the tables of the magnificent palaces of the Ottoman Empire.

“The tea is more consumed in Turkey than our Brazilian coffee”, compares Janine.

Usually the tea is served in a small tumbler in the form of tulip, with porcelain saucer or metal, everywhere, shops, cafes, restaurants, after meals and even on the street. Besides black tea, are found the apple tea (elma çai) in several places, and the Pomegranate Tea, most preferred by tourists.

“The more interesting than the tea is the main drink in happy-ours”, he noted, considering that religion is a factor that favors the tea and coffee consumption. Most of the population is Muslim and is prohibited from consuming alcohol, as both drinks are stimulants, there is no lack on the menu of social gatherings.

As the demand is large consumer, the Turks are true alchemy with mixtures of flowers, fruits and herbs and at the end, turn them into aromatic drinks with delicious taste. Walk around the Spice Bazaar seeking these magic potions is a treat for the tourist.

Now is the time of the coffee! 

Talk about the curious tradition of interpreting the future with symbols created by the fine dust that settles on the bottom of the cup after being consumed …

The custom of reading the coffee to know the future is probably as old as the very use of the drink for humanity, whose origin is from Ethiopia. The set of photos shows the Sicak Kumba Kahve (Coffee in the heated sand), Sirince, near Kusadasi, Ismir.

The first to use coffee were the African tribes who used the the plant and its fruit just to feed livestock. But it was enough pastors observe their animals were smarter and willing after eating the leaf and the fruit, and the man began to consume as beverages (source Wikipedia). The photo shows a coffee seller on the street, in Turkey, in a more rudimentary development.

For a perfect Turkish coffee a very fine grinding is required. The tradition foresees the use of a tin mill to achieve a near impalpable powder like powdered sugar. Drink it in small low cups after the dust be completely deposited  on the bottom.

The origin of the tradition of reading coffee nobody knows, just knows that the interpretation is intuitive and its technique is passed from generation to generation.

So it was with the Turkish businessman of the tourism field, Sedat (Sergio) Ikman, who received the “gift” from his grandmother. “Reading coffee is not something you learn, says solemnly. “There is an expression to explain this ability, ‘it was passed to my hands’.

Sergio tells that when child he watched her grandmother reading to her friends and was curious about it. Thought it was joke of it. “I decided to do the same thing”, he recalls, noting that in the beggining he used to read for his friends and thought it would always be like this. As a joke.

“But after the fifteenth coffee I have read, I understood I had the capacity needed to do this seriously and, above all, meet people with special energy”. From three brothers, he was the only one who tried.

To Sergio, who directs Güle,Güle, is just a hobby, however, he has read more than two thousand coffees and each of them gave him adrenaline and pleasure. “I do not teach my children, but if passed into their hands, they will seek their own ways.”

The reading depends on the moment, according to Sergio, and symbols do not have defined meanings. “Coffee absorbs the feelings of the person who drank and reflects those feelings by symbols. There are no rules to read the coffee and it is a practice prohibited by Islam, but is so ingrained in Turkish culture, that every Turkish would like to be able to read.”

Right or wrong, the reading of the dust deposited in the cup has much acceptance among tourists, a tradition that for Janine Malanski was not new when she found Sergio. She used to read with a Brazilian, Luci F. Cequinel, residing in Curitiba (now deceased and without passing into other hands, so it has knowledge, the ability to read the coffee). “I never thought I would find someone in Turkey to do the same reading as Luci did. It was a pleasant surprise, because much of what she saw in the coffee happened”.

Predictions of Sergio, also, among many, have success stories. “I saw the birth of twins in the coffee of a Canadian couple. A year after they were born, a couple, and gave my name to the boy. I saw an Italian lady has had an abortion, also saw a outgoing girl had a huge inferiority complex”.

But Sergio warns: read the dregs is not a profession! There is no place famous in Turkey for coffee reading. “You can find in the entire country good and bad readers.”

With reading or not, visit Turkey and not have a coffee or tea stylish home, is to lose the opportunity to get involved with the feelings that these drinks provide by its history and antiquity, evident in the ways and customs of the Turkish people and preserved by him with such particularity.