Wanting a taste of home, my friend and native Turk Elif Burgaz ordered a Turkish coffee at Nanina kuhinja, a restaurant in Baščaršija, Sarajevo’s Turkish quarter. The man sitting next to us, Nadir Spahić, was quick to interject. “Bosnian coffee is not Turkish coffee,” he said, a hint of defensiveness in his voice. The difference, he explained, is in the process.

Both start out with roasted coffee beans that are pulverised into a fine powder and cooked in a small (generally) copper-plated pot with a long neck, called a džezva (or cezve in Turkish). But the Turks add the coffee and optional sugar to cold water before placing it on the stove. When preparing Bosnian coffee, the cold water goes on the stove alone.

After coming to a boil, a small amount of water is set aside. The coffee is then added to the džezva and put back onto the stove for a few seconds, allowing the liquid to boil yet again, rise to the point of overflowing and create a thick foam. This process may be repeated several times. Then the hot water that had been set aside is added.

To all but the biggest connoisseurs, these differences seem minute. But adding the hot water at the end creates even thicker foam, and adding the coffee later in the process often creates a more robust flavour in the already intense coffee. At least that’s what I was told when I received my Bosnian coffee making certificate from Rahatlook, a lovely café in Baščaršija that offers a quick, somewhat gimmicky lesson in the procedure.

To me, Bosnian coffee tasted indistinguishable from its Turkish counterpart, which is to say it was potent, bitter and as thick as mud. For tourists like myself, an easier way to tell the difference between the two coffees may be by how each one is served. “In Turkey, the cezve belongs to the kitchen, not to the table,” Burgaz said. Turkish coffee is served in a single small cup; Bosnian coffee is served in a full džezva (which holds three cups of coffee) on a round iron tray with an empty, ceramic cup, a glass of water, a dish full of sugar cubes and a rahat lokum, a Bosnian candy that foreigners might call Turkish delight.

When you’re ready for your coffee, first take a sip of water. Spoon out a layer of foam from the top, then pour from the džezva before adding the foam to the cup (after all, Bosnian coffee with no foam is no Bosnian coffee at all). If you want sugar, don’t plop it in your drink; instead, take a bite from one of the cubes on your tray and put it under your tongue to dissolve as you sip.

There are two real advantages to coffee served in a džezva. First, the sludge that often forms in the bottom of unfiltered coffee – and is so characteristic of Turkish coffee – remains in the pot instead of your cup, decreasing the chance that an amateur drinker will end up with a mouthful of grit.

Secondly, the copper-plated džezvas keep coffee hot for long periods of time; important because while a cup of Bosnian coffee might be smaller than you’re used to, it’s also probably stronger. Plus, Bosnians sit for hours in front of a cup, just making conversation. We decided to do the same.

As Burgaz and I sat, refilling our cups and catching up, I returned to thinking about the defensiveness in Spahić’s voice when he pointed out the differences between Bosnian coffee and Turkish coffee.

In a country under foreign rule for centuries, where the atrocities of the war are still fresh in the collective memory, national identity gains a new importance. Spahić and most others I met seemed logical and forgiving about what their country had experienced. And they’ve managed to turn years of hardship into (often sarcastic) humour, melding coffee drinking with hours of witty banter.

“The Serbs, I’m fine with them,” Nadir said, a wry grin on his face. “But the Serbs think we’re Turkish. We are not.”

I later met a Bosnian medical student who pointed out a potential downside of so much coffee-cup chatter. “Everyone’s just sitting all the day, drinking coffee, not doing anything,” he said. “But this is also the problem with [Bosnia-Hercegovina]. Everybody just sits and drinks coffee and yells about the government. People shed blood so you can have a right to vote. Get up and do something! Nothing is going to get done complaining over coffee!”

His comment made me think about Mostar, a gorgeous town about 125km south of Sarajevo, where a 16th-century Ottoman bridge was famously levelled by Croatia during the war. The bridge, rebuilt with much of its original material, now crosses the turquoise Neretva River once again.

Outside of the old town, cafes lined the streets and countless rows of Bosnian youth sipped espresso. Their preferred coffee may have been European, not Bosnian, in style, but they drank it like those that came before them – slowly and deliberately. It was rare to catch a glimpse of anyone looking at a cell phone. They just sat and enjoyed the company. I hope that the student was wrong – that hours of coffee drinking isn’t a problem – because it’s refreshing to think that while most of the world’s people are racing to some invisible finish line, Bosnians seemed to take a little time to enjoy the small things in life.

If u buy
Bosnians are renowned for their metalwork, and Sarajevo’s Turkish quarter is littered with shops selling engraved Bosnian coffee sets, all of which claim to be completely handmade in the traditional way. According to Juliet Walker, a metalworker and owner of a café/laundry called theLaundro Loundge, there’s a simple way to tell if this is true. If there are small lines circling the metal, the set was made by machine. If it’s completely solid, the set is handmade.

text by Brad Cohen ( http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20140707-the-complicated-culture-of-bosnian-coffee/1 )

Prije neki dan sam pregledavao slike na prijateljovom FB od prije nekoliko godina i stvarno sam bio sretan….istinski sretan. Slike iz Zadra, Borika, sa pivom u ruci i zalazkom sunca iza ledja i naravno osmijeh na licu. Mladalaci izgled, 20-tak kila manje i pomisao i zivotni moto nista mi nece ovaj dan pokvarit 😀

Bio je to iznenadni put, nas 5 u autu i pravac more. Dogovor svojstven samo nama, poslije pete pive i sa samo bezveznim pitanjem: “Hocemo li sutra na more?”. Ujutro se okupismo, kafica u Goldu, pravac benzinska i put pod noge. Prije granice u granap po fasungu, 2-3 gajbe Premingera (u to vrijeme, 2004, najbolje pivo na svijetu), argete pastete i malo vode cisto radi reda 😀

Standardni naobdan put do Borika, zasto Borika? Pa najblize od Krupe, a raji sa Une more ko more pa gdje god…ipak mi volimo Unu-Una je zakon 😀 Kupanje, piva, zeza i onaj osjecaj kada nisi imao briga i svega sto nam zivot namece. Bez plana-bez buducnosti, niko nije htjeo da razmislja o tome, samo da je sta popiti i pojesti…ipak je ljeto i kratko traje treba to iskoristiti. Iskren da budem, ne sjecam se povratka kuci, mutan mi je-shvatljivo, ali gledajuci te slike sve i jedanog derneka sam se prisjetio, osmijeha i veselja raje oko mene…happy times 😀

I evo mene sjedim za ovim kompacom, prisjecam se sretnih vremena, sa gorkim okusom u grlu i pitanjem kada sam zadnji put bio tako istinski sretan i pravio oko sebe ljude sretnim. Iskreno ne mogu se sjetiti, juce? Prekljuce? Prosle sedmice? Godine??? Skontao sam da vise ne znam ni bajram obiljeziti (ateista sam ali mi se svidja tradicija…), ne znam ugostiti, ponasati se kako treba, one male stvari. Postao sam jako ostar na odgovorima, frustriran u glasu i po ponasanju, bez strpljenja…sta se desilo sa mnom? Nekako sam se promjenio kada sam starog spustio 2metra ispod zemlje na Lipiku, nema mog pravog prijatelja, psihologa, advokata i sudije. Njegova je rijec bila moja svetinja i koliko se god trudio da pratim njegove stope ljudstva i kodeksa ponasanja, uspjevam ocajno i to me ljuti…bas u zadnje vrijeme masim biti covjek, prijatelj, momak i roditelj…frustriran sam, sám sam sebi kriv i glupost je uprijeti prstom u bilo koga osim sebe samog…

Iskren da budem, nedostaje mi onaj stari ljudjak sa osmijehom na licu i bez zli misli i namjera…stvarno sam se uvukao u sebe…ne valja…nedostaje mi raja, moram naci vise prijatelja i to pod hitno…bas sam katastrofa, izolovan u svom malom svijetu i ne pustam nikoga unutra.

Vrijeme je za promjene ili ravno do dna!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BqEym4ffSk

Vise od pola vremena je proslo od kako je mama na sluzbenom putu i nama troma ide super. Druzimo se, svadjamo se, njih dvoje protiv mene i nekako olako popustam. Nije zato sto zelim nego nekako sto ne zelim da na prvo pitanje kakda mama dodje kuci da bude tata vaki neki. Zelim da na prvo mamino pitanje bude kao iz topa da je sve ok. Sistem je jednostavan, Diego+bombone=sreca. Tako to ide, nije me sram priznati, ali je lakse, sta ce im biti tih nekoliko dana gdje mogu da dobivaju sta pozele 😀

Danas sam uspjeo maratonski odspavati 2 sata, pravilo br.1 glasi da roditelji trebaju da spavaju kada i bebe spavaju. Posto beba Z je u vrticu, tih nekoliko sati nije moja briga, bebica A je kod kuce sa mnom i rutinski ide spavati poslije punog stomaka oko 12 sati, a i ja za njim. Osjeca se potrosenih 2 sata uzalud jer sam mogao raditi neke svoje stvari ali mi nije krivo jer sam bas “odzonjo” kao pravi. Mogao bih definitivno ovo uraditi malo cesce…svaki put kada bude pogodno za to.

Razmisljam sutra bazen mozda, ne bih bilo lose da se bebice iskupaju…definitivno bazen sutra, lakse se spava poslije bazena. Imam osjecaj da me badzo zeli sutra izvesti u grad, zasluzeno siguran sam…da se malko opustimo, ako tetka je spremna da pricuva mojih 2+ svoje, komada 1 😀 Cisto iskoristavanje (pssst bez griznje savjesti, zato je familija tu :D)

A sada moje vrijeme, sinovi anarhije, sezona 7, epizoda 2…cista uzivancija 😀

P.S.: Mami, nedostajes, fali nam generalni sekretar ove institucije, ne mogu vise da se izvlacim na njihove zahtjeve odgovorom pitaj te mamu 😀

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