Much like the rest of the world, in the Middle East, coffee is an essential part of everyday life. Hospitality begins with offering guests a cup of coffee. Visits to celebrate births, mourn deaths, and everything in between includes repeated offerings of coffee.
If you’re not familiar with the Middle East, you probably have never heard of a Chaffe cup or what they are used for.
What are these small cups that seem to be missing a handle?
Chaffe, means a small sip in Arabic and as the name suggests, it provides a small shot of coffee.
Taste
Drinking Arabic coffee is a welcome part of most Middle Easterner’s days. Traditionally, Chaffe cups are used to serve a type of coffee popular in the Middle East. Normally thicker and full of grit, this coffee often contains a strong addition of cardamom to the already roasted coffee bean. Then the bean is ground, quite often right before being brewed. Not for the faint of heart, this coffee packs a punch, perhaps that’s why the cups are small. Due to the bitterness of this brew, chaffe coffee is often accompanied by a small sweet treat like dates or chocolates.
Chaffe Cup: Swirl Pattern by Zarina Tableware
The coffee served in a chaffe cup is not your average blend, this coffee will get you addicted in no time. It follows then that people love to collect many different patterns to serve their favorite guilty pleasure in.
Chaffe Coffee Recipe
Use the specific pot with a long handle called a rakweh.
- Pour water to fill the chaffe cup.
- Pour as many measures of water (from the chaffe cup) as you need into the pot.
- Add a generous teaspoon of coffee per chaffe cup of water (Middle Eastern coffee can be found in most specialty shops.)
- Add sugar only if everybody wants it and only half a teaspoon per cup or to taste.
- Heat gently on low heat as the coffee needs time to dissolve.
- When the surface of the coffee starts to bubble and boil, turn off the heat and pour back into the chaffe cup.
Rakweh
Many enjoy flipping the coffee cup over after drinking it and “reading” the future by looking at the different formations the coffee has made against the cup. We hope your future is bright and these cups bring good energy to you.
