All About Coffee Part 129

[Ill.u.s.tration: PERSIAN COFFEE SERVICE, 1737]

Gone are the "luxurious and magnificent" coffee houses of Constantinople (if they ever existed--at least as we understand luxury and magnificence) which first brought the beverage world-wide fame; such _caffinets_ as the one pictured by Thomas Allom and described by the Rev. Robert Walsh, in _Constantinople, Ill.u.s.trated_:

The caffinet, or coffee-house, is something more splendid, and the Turk expends all his notions of finery and elegance on this, his favorite place of indulgence. The edifice is generally decorated in a very gorgeous manner, supported on pillars, and open in front. It is surrounded on the inside by a raised platform, covered with mats or cus.h.i.+ons, on which the Turks sit cross-legged. On one side are musicians, generally Greeks, with mandolins and tambourines, accompanying singers, whose melody consists in vociferation; and the loud and obstreperous concert forms a strong contrast to the stillness and taciturnity of Turkish meetings. On the opposite side are men, generally of a respectable cla.s.s, some of whom are found here every day, and all day long, dozing under the double influence of coffee and tobacco. The coffee is served in very small cups, not larger than egg-cups, grounds and all, without cream or sugar, and so black, thick, and bitter that it has been aptly compared to "stewed soot". Besides the ordinary chibouk for tobacco, there is another implement, called narghillai, used for smoking in a caffinet, of a more elaborate construction. It consists of a gla.s.s vase, filled with water, and often scented with distilled rose or other flowers. This is surmounted with a silver or brazen head, from which issues a long flexible tube; a pipe-bowl is placed on the top, and so constructed that the smoke is drawn, and comes bubbling up through the water, cool and fragrant to the mouth. A peculiar kind of tobacco, grown at s.h.i.+raz in Persia, and resembling small pieces of cut leather, is used with this instrument.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN A TURKISH COFFEE HOUSE]

Certainly there never was any such thing as a coffee-house architecture.

It may be that up to the time of Abdul Hamid, when money was more plentiful than it has been for the past fifty years, there were coffee houses more comfortably appointed than now exist.

The coffee house in a modernized form is, however, quite as numerous in Turkey as in the days of Amurath III and the notorious Kuprili.

H.G. Dwight[369] writing on the present day Turkish coffee house, says:

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROASTING COFFEE BEFORE A CAFe, TURKEY]

There are thoroughfares in any Turkish city that carry on almost no other form of traffic. There is no quarter so miserable or so remote as to be without one or two. They are the clubs of the poorer cla.s.ses. Men of a street, a trade, a province, or a nationality--for a Turkish coffee-house may also be Albanian, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Kurd, almost anything you please--meet regularly when their work is done, at coffee-houses kept by their own people. So much are the humbler coffee-houses frequented by a fixed clientele that a student of types or dialects may realize for himself how truly they used to be called Schools of Knowledge.

The arrangement of a Turkish coffee-house is of the simplest. The essential is that the place should provide the beverage for which it exists and room for enjoying the same. A sketch of a coffee-shop may often be seen on the street, in a sc.r.a.p of shade or suns.h.i.+ne according to the season, where a stool or two invite the pa.s.ser-by to a moment of contemplation. Larger establishments, though they are rarely very large, are most often installed in a room longer than it is wide, having as many windows as possible at the street end and what we would call the bar at the other. It is a bar that always makes me regret I do not etch, with its pleasing curves, its high lights of bra.s.s and porcelain striking out of deep shadow, and its usually picturesque _kahvehji_.

You do not stand at it. You sit on one of the benches running down the sides of the room. They are more or less comfortably cus.h.i.+oned, though sometimes higher and broader than a foreigner finds to his taste. In that case you slip off your shoes, if you would do as the Romans do, and tuck your feet up under you. A table stands in front of you to hold your coffee--and often in summer an aromatic pot of basil to keep the flies away. Chairs or stools are scattered about.

Decorative Arabic texts, sometimes wonderful prints, adorn the walls. There may even be hanging rugs and china to entertain your eyes. And there you are.

The habit of the coffee-house is one that requires a certain leisure. You must not bolt coffee as you bolt the fire-waters of the West, without ceremony, in retreats withdrawn from the public eye. Being a less violent and a less shameful pa.s.sion, I suppose, it is indulged in with more of the humanities. The etiquette of the coffee-house, of those coffee-houses which have not been too much infected by Europe, is one of their most characteristic features.

Something like it prevails in Italy, where you tip your hat on entering and leaving a _caffe_. In Turkey, however, I have seen a new-comer salute one after another each person in a crowded coffee-room, once on entering the door and again after taking his seat, and be so saluted in return--either by putting the right hand to the heart and uttering the greeting _Merhabah_, or by making the _temennah_, that triple sweep of the hand which is the most graceful of salutes. I have also seen an entire company rise upon the entrance of an old man, and yield him the corner of honor.

Such courtesies take time. Then you must wait for your coffee to be made. To this end coffee, roasted fresh as required by turning in an iron cylinder over a fire of sticks and ground to the fineness of powder in a bra.s.s mill, is put into a small uncovered bra.s.s pot with a long handle. There it is boiled to a froth three times on a charcoal brazier, with or without sugar as you prefer. But to desecrate it by the admixture of milk is an unheard of sacrilege.

Some _kahvehjis_ replace the pot in the embers with a smart rap in order to settle the grounds. You in the meanwhile smoke. That also takes time, particularly if you "drink" a _narguileh_, as the Turks say. This is familiar enough in the West to require no great description. It is a big carafe with a metal top for holding tobacco and a long coil of leather tube for inhaling the water-cooled fumes thereof. The effect is wonderfully soothing and innocent at first, though wonderfully deadly in the end to the novice. The tobacco used is not the ordinary weed, but a much coa.r.s.er and stronger one called _tunbeki_, which comes from Persia.

The same sort of tobacco used to be smoked a great deal in shallow red earthenware pipes with long mouthpieces. They are now chiefly seen in antiquity shops.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF A TURKISH CAFFINET, EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY--AFTER ALLAN]

When your coffee is ready it is poured into an after-dinner coffee-cup or into a miniature bowl, and brought to you on a tray with a gla.s.s of water. A foreigner can almost always be spotted by the manner in which he finally partakes of these refreshments. A Turk sips his water first, partly to prepare the way for the coffee, but also because he is a connoisseur of the former liquid as other men are of stronger ones. And he lifts his coffee-cup by the saucer, whether it possess a handle or no, managing the two together in a dexterous way of his own. The current price for all this, not including the water-pipe, is ten paras--a trifle over a cent--for which the _kahvehji_ will cry you "Blessing". More pretentious establishments charge twenty paras, while a giddy few rise to a piaster--not quite five cents--or a piaster and a half.

That, however, begins to look like extortion. And mark that you do not tip the waiter. I have often been surprised to be charged no more than the tariff, although I gave a larger piece to be changed and it was perfectly evident that I was a foreigner. That is an experience which rarely befalls a traveller among his own coreligionaries. It has even happened to me, which is rarer still, to be charged nothing at all, nay, to be steadfastly refused when I persisted in attempting to pay, simply because I was a foreigner, and therefore a guest.

There is no reason, however, why you should go away when you have had your coffee--or your gla.s.s of tea--and your smoke. On the contrary, there are reasons why you should stay, particularly if you happen into the coffee-house not too long after sunset. Then coffee-houses of the most local color are at their best. Earlier in the day their clients are likely to be at work. Later they will have disappeared altogether. For Constantinople has not quite forgotten the habits of the tent. Stamboul, except during the holy month of Ramazan, is a deserted city at night. But just after dark it is full of a life which an outsider is often content simply to watch through the lighted windows of coffee-rooms. These are also barber-shops, where men have shaved not only their chins, but different parts of their heads according to their "countries". In them likewise checkers, the Persian backgammon, and various games of long narrow cards are played. They say that Bridge came from Constantinople. Indeed, I believe a club of Pera claims the honor of having communicated that pa.s.sion to the Western World. But I must confess that I have yet to see an open hand in a coffee-house of the people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE MAKING IN TURKEY]

One of the pleasantest forms of amus.e.m.e.nt to be obtained in coffee-houses is unfortunately getting to be one of the rarest. It is that afforded by itinerant story-tellers, who still carry on in the East the tradition of the troubadours. The stories they tell are more or less on the order of the Arabian Nights, though perhaps even less suitable for mixed companies--which for the rest are never found in coffee-shops. These men are sometimes wonderfully clever at character monologue or dialogue. They collect their pay at a crucial moment of the action, refusing to continue until the audience has testified to the sincerity of its interest by some token more substantial.

Music is much more common. There are those, to be sure, who find no music in the sounds poured forth oftenest by a gramophone, often by a pair of gypsies with a flaring pipe and two small gourd drums, and sometimes by an orchestra so-called of the fine lute--a company of musicians on a railed dais who sing long songs while they play on stringed instruments of strange curves. For myself I know too little of music to tell what relation the recurrent cadences of those songs and their broken rhythms may bear to the antique modes.

But I can listen, as long as musicians will perform, to those infinite repet.i.tions, that insistent sounding of the minor key. It pleases me to fancy there a music come from far away--from unknown river gorges, from camp-fires glimmering on great plains. Does not such darkness breathe through it, such melancholy, such haunting of elusive airs? There are flashes too of light, of song, the playing of shepherd's pipes, the swoop of hors.e.m.e.n and sudden outcries of savagery. But the note to which it all comes back is the monotone of a primitive life, like the day-long beat of camel bells. And more than all, it is the mood of Asia, so rarely penetrated, which is neither lightness or despair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STREET COFFEE VENDER IN THE LEVANT, 1714]

There are seasons in the year when these various forms of entertainment abound more than at others, as Ramazan and the two Bairams. Throughout the month of Ramazan the purely Turkish coffee-houses are closed in the daytime, since the pleasures which they minister may not then be indulged in; but they are open all night. It is during that one month of the year that Karaghieuz, the Turkish shadow-show, may be seen in a few of the larger coffee-shops. The Bairams are two festivals of three and four days respectively, the former of which celebrates the close of Ramazan, while the latter corresponds in certain respects to the Jewish Pa.s.sover. Dancing is a particular feature of the coffee-houses in Bairam. The Kurds, who carry the burdens of Constantinople on their backs, are above all other men given to this form of exercise--though the Lazzes, the boatmen, vie with them. One of these dark tribesmen plays a little violin like a poch.e.l.le, or two of them perform on a pipe and a big drum, while the others dance round them in a circle, sometimes till they drop from fatigue. The weird music and the picturesque costumes and movements of the dancers make the spectacle one to be remembered.

Christian coffee-houses also have their own festal seasons. These coincide in general with the festivals of the church. But every quarter has its patron saint, the saint of the local church or of the local holy well, whose feast is celebrated by a three-day _panayiri_. The street is dressed with flags and strings of colored paper, tables and chairs line the sidewalk, and libations are poured forth in honor of the holy person commemorated. For this reason, and because of the more volatile character of the Greek, the general note of his merrymaking is louder than that of the Turk. One may even see the scandalous spectacle of men and women dancing together at a Greek _panayiri_. The instrument which sets the key of these orgies is the _lanterna_, a species of hand-organ peculiar to Constantinople. It is a hand-piano rather, of a loud and cheerful voice, whose Eurasian harmonies are enlivened by a frequent clash of bells.

What first made coffee-houses suspicious to those in authority, however, is their true resource--the advantages they offer for meeting one's kind, for social converse and the contemplation of life. Hence it must be that they have so happy a tact for locality.

They seek shade, pleasant corners, open squares, the prospect of water or wide landscapes. In Constantinople they enjoy an infinite choice of site, so huge is the extent of that city, so broken by hill and sea, so varied in its spectacle of life. The commonest type of city coffee-room looks out upon the pa.s.sing world from under a grape-vine or a climbing wistaria.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COFFEE HOUSE IN SYRIA--AFTER JARDIN]

Coffee-houses of distinction are to be found also in the Place of the Pines overlooking the Marble Sea, on Giant's Mountain, in the Landing Place of the Man-slayer, and along the rivers that flow into the Golden Horn.

Originally the Turkish method of preparing coffee was the Arabian method, and it is so described by Mr. Fellows in his _Excursions through Asia Minor_:

Each cup is made separately, the little saucepan or ladle in which it is prepared being about an inch wide and two deep; this is more than half filled with coffee, finely pounded with a pestle and mortar, and then filled up with water; after being placed for a few seconds on the fire, the contents are poured, or rather shaken, out (being much thicker than chocolate) without the addition of cream or sugar, into a china cup of the size and shape of half an egg-sh.e.l.l, which is inclosed in one of ornamented metal for convenience of holding in the hand.

Later, the Turks sought to improve the method by adding sugar (a concession to the European sweet tooth) during the boiling process. The improved Turkish recipe is as follows:

First boil the water. For two cups of the beverage add three lumps of sugar and return the boiler to the fire. Add two teaspoonfuls of powdered coffee, stirring well and let the pot boil up four times.

Between each boiling the pot is to be removed from the fire and the bottom tapped gently until the froth on the top subsides. After the last boiling pour the coffee first into one cup and then the other, so as to evenly divide the froth.

In Syria and Palestine the Turkish-Arabian methods are followed. The brazen dippers, or _ibriks_, are used for boiling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAFETAN

Oriental coffee-house keeper's costume]

In the Near East, coffee manners and customs are much the same today as they were fifty or even one hundred years ago. Witness Damascus. The following pen picture of the cafes in this ancient city was written in 1836 to accompany the drawing by Bartlett and Purser, which is reproduced here; but it might have been written in 1922, so slight have been the changes in the setting or the spirit of the original coffee house that Shemsi first brought to Constantinople from Damascus in 1554.[370]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STREET COFFEE SERVICE IN CONSTANTINOPLE]

The Cafes of the kind represented in the plate are, perhaps, the greatest luxury that a stranger finds in Damascus. Gardens, kiosques, fountains, and groves are abundant around every Eastern capital: but Cafes on the very bosom of a rapid river, and bathed by its waves, are peculiar to this ancient city: they are formed so as to exclude the rays of the sun, while they admit the breeze; the light roof is supported by slender rows of pillars, and the building is quite open on every side.

A few of these houses are situated in the skirts of the town, on one of the streams, where the eye rests on the luxuriant vegetation of garden and wood: others are in the heart of the city: a flight of steps conducts to them from the sultry street, and it is delightful to pa.s.s in a few moments from the noisy, shadeless thoroughfare, where you see only mean gateways and the gable-ends of edifices, to a cool, grateful, calm place of rest and refreshment, where you can muse and meditate in ease and luxury, and feel at every moment the rich breeze from the river. In two or three instances, a light wooden bridge leads to the platform, close to which, and almost out of it, one or two large and n.o.ble trees lift the canopy of their spreading branches and leaves, more welcome at noonday than the roofs of fretted gold in the "Arabian Nights." The high pavilion roof and the pillars are all constructed of wood: the floor is of wood, and sometimes of earth, and is regularly watered, and raised only a few inches above the level of the stream, which rushes by at the feet of the customer, which it almost bathes, as he sips his coffee or sherbet. Innumerable small seats cover the floor, and you take one of these, and place it in the position you like best.

Perhaps you wish to sit apart from the crowd, just under the shadow of the tree, or in some favourite corner where you can smoke, and contemplate the motley guests, formed into calm and solemn groups, who wish to hold no communion with the Giaour. There is ample food here for the observer of character, costume and pretension: the tradesman, the mechanic, the soldier, the gentleman, the dandy, the grave old man, looking wise on the past and dimly on the future: the hadge, in his green turban, vain of his journey to Mecca, and drawing a long bow in his tales and adventures: the long straight pipe, the hookah with its soft curling tube and gla.s.s vase, are in request: but the poorer argille is most commonly used.

From sunrise to set, these houses are never empty: we were accustomed to visit one of them early every morning, before breakfast, and very many persons were already there: yet this "balmy hour of prime" was the most silent and solitary of the whole day; it was the coolest also: the rising sun was glancing redly on the waters: there was as yet no heat in the air, and the little cup of Mocha coffee and the pipe were handed by an attendant as soon as the stranger was seated. His favourite Cafe was the one represented in the plate: the river is the Barrada, the ancient Pharpar. Never was the sound of many waters so pleasant to the ear as in Damascus: the air is filled with the sound, with which no clash of tongues, rolling of wheels, march of footman or hors.e.m.e.n, mingle: the numerous groups who love to resort here are silent half the time; and when they do converse, their voice is often "low, like that of a familiar spirit," or in short grave sentences that pa.s.s quickly from the ear.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A RIVERSIDE CAFe IN DAMASCUS, NINETEENTH CENTURY

After Bartlett and Purser]

Yet much, very much of the excitement of the life of the Turk in this city, is absorbed in these coffee-houses: they are his opera, his theatre, his conversazione: soon after his eyes are unclosed from sleep, he thinks of his Cafe, and forthwith bends his way there: during the day he looks forward to pa.s.s the evening on the loved floor, to look on the waters, on the stars above, and on the faces of his friends; and at the moonlight falling on all. Mahomet committed a grievous error in the omission of coffee-houses, in a future state: had he ever seen those of Damascus, he would surely have given them a place on his rivers of Paradise, persuaded that true believers must feel a melancholy void without them.

There is no ornament or richness about these houses: no sofas, mirrors, or drapery, save that afforded by a few evergreens and creepers: the famous silks and damasks of Damascus have no place here; all is plain and homely; yet no Parisian Cafe, with its beautiful mirrors, gilding, and luxuriousness, is so welcome to the imagination and senses of the traveller. After wandering many days over dry, and stony, and desert places, where the lip thirsted for the stream, is it not delicious to sit at the brink of a wild, impetuous torrent, to gaze on its white foam and breaking waves, till you can almost feel their gush in every nerve and fibre, and can bathe your very soul in them. And while you slowly smoke your pipe of purest tobacco, the sands of the desert, and their burning sun, rise again before you, when you prayed for even the shadow of a cloud on your way. The banks are in some parts covered with wood, whose soft green verdure contrasts beautifully with the clear torrent, and almost droops into its bosom.

Near the coffee-houses are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries--in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafes constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor, which is furnished with very plain sofas and cus.h.i.+ons; and music and dancing always abound, of the most unrefined description.

The only intellectual gratification in these places is afforded by the Arab story-tellers, among whom are a few eminent and clever men: soon after his entrance, a group begins to form around the gifted man, who, after a suitable pause, to collect hearers or whet their expectations, begins his story. It is a picturesque sight--of the Arab with his wild and graceful gestures, and his auditory, hushed into deep and child-like attention, seated at the edge of the rus.h.i.+ng tide, while the narrator moves from side to side, and each accent of his distinct and musical voice is heard throughout the Cafe. The building directly opposite is another house, of a similar kind in every respect There are a few small Cafes, more select as to company, where the Turkish gentlemen often go, form dinner parties, and spend the day.