Turkey is one of the best-traveling destinations for it caters a lot of cultures and historical places. The geographical location of Turkey lies within Eastern Europe and Western Asia, but the cities culture has merely connected to ancient Greek, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires.
Aside from the magnificent view of the city, an added tourist spot is the newly open Turkish Coffee Museum. This first-ever coffee museum is a collaboration of three coffee experts in the northern province of Karabük’s Safranbolu district— a UNESCO World Heritage site — the museum is devoted to preserving the 500-year-old coffee culture of Anatolia on to future generations and takes tourist on the historical journey of Turkish coffee.
The Turkish Coffee Museum opened its doors on February 11 at the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum.
Inside the coffee museum, can be seen various kinds of coffee offered in different parts of Anatolia, and pieces of coffee equipment like coffee pots, cups, coffee grinders, scales, wooden spoons, water cubes and sugar bowls that are over 100 to 150 years of age that shows the history of coffee.
Naim Koca and Atilla Narin, the writers of the book “Anadolu’nun Kayıp Kahveleri” (“Lost Coffees of Anatolia”), and Semih Yıldırım, the inventor of coffee made of saffron, the world’s most expensive plant, have opened the Turkish Coffee Museum with materials they gathered over the years.
There are over 40 coffee species featured inside the museum including “Burçak,” “Zingarella,” “Tarz-ı Hususi,” “Mırra,” “Nohut,” “Cilveli,” “Şehzade,” “Hilve” and “Dibek.”
The newly opened Turkish Coffee Museum is a one-stop shop to all the visitors who wish to learn more about the culture and history of Turkish coffee. Guests have the opportunity to learn correctly the proper way on how to make the popular Turkish coffee, and have the chance to receive a certificate which is an opportunity to expand the knowledge in coffee.
The museum also aims to show the visitors the old coffee relics that were used in the early times in Turkish history: A cup used by the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid, a coffee pot that belonged to War of Independence veteran Sütçü İmam, the replica of a coffee cup from which Turkish Republic founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk drank his last coffee and a 12-cornered coffee cup representing 12 imams.
Koca said, ” the making of Turkish coffee was important and they had established the museum with his friends after a four-year effort to survive this culture.” ” they aimed to make Turkish coffee more well-known in the world, said, “I and my friend Atilla Narin prepared the book ‘Anadolu’nun Kayıp Kahveleri.’ There are some 40 coffee types. We want coffee to develop a little more in our country because it is part of our culture. The aim of our museum is to reveal the coffee more clearly. To help people know more about coffee and to spread coffee culture,” he added.
“We gathered coffee cultures in our country in the book. Turkish coffee is very important to us. We finished the work for the Turkish Coffee Museum last month after four years. We have received a lot of attention and support. This is the first coffee museum; the only one in Turkey. We have received many donations with meticulous work. We get many positive reactions and want to develop the museum because coffee has been existing in this place for the last 500 years.” – Atilla Narin
More to this story at Hurriyet Daily News
