I enjoy taking everyday tasks and turning them into an art. I find there is a beauty in appreciating the parts of one’s day that are often overlooked as mundane. Be it trying to perfect my handwriting or meticulously framing the pictures I take during my travels, I have always tried to emulate this art into my life.
Upon first arriving in Sarajevo, I learned that in Bosnia, this same approach is applied to brewing coffee. While in Bosnia, I visited a local family and learned about the Bosnian customs surrounding coffee. There, coffee takes up less of a quick “cup o’ Joe” role, but rather a “coffee and cake” role. Coffee is typically drunk as its own meal at nearly any hour of the day. The first time I had Bosnian coffee was at about eight o’clock at night!
Typically, Bosnian coffee is served with some sort of dessert (typically a Turkish delight in my experience) and a large sugar cube, about an inch on each side. The coffee is made in its own copper pot called a džezva and takes about ten minutes to prepare. Once served, you are supposed to dip the sugar cube into the coffee, take a bite out of it, and drink the coffee through the sugar cube to sweeten it. The result is a beautifully rich and bitter coffee that is nothing like anything I’ve had elsewhere.
After I came home from Bosnia, I felt in love with how Bosnian coffee was made. I found myself a džezva and started to brew my own at home. There was a lot of trial and error in trying to figure out the process, but I ended up developing my own method of brewing that works well for me.
How a džezva works is you have to grind your beans super fine and then put them into the pot, stir them with water and then boil the solution. I typically use a teaspoon or so per cup that I am making. Eventually, some of the grounds start to rise to the top and flip over. Once this happens, you are supposed to take the džezva off the stove and scoop the grounds that settled to the top out with a spoon.
What I learned in Bosnia was that you are supposed to repeat this process twice in order to get the flavour out of it, but I only do this once when I brew mine. I have had trouble finding Bosnian sugar cubes in my area, so I usually brew my Bosnian coffee with sugar in it. Because of this, the coffee gets a sour taste when I boil over a second time, like bad airport espresso.
After the coffee is brewed, there will be a white film at the top of the džezva. This film is what gives the coffee its richness and without it, the coffee can lean a bit on the bitter side. When pouring, I use cups that came as a set with my džezva, so it’s easier to keep the film. I have found that espresso cups also work well, too. Pouring the coffee is one of the easiest parts to mess up when brewing Bosnian coffee. You have to be very careful to pour the coffee slowly into your cup, which ensures that the flavour is kept in the drink.
Džezvas are designed to have a special handle and a lip for pouring the coffee, so it should be easy to control how fast the pour is. It is also important to keep the pour to one spot. When pouring, if the pour moves around, it can easily break down the film.
When serving, the most popular thing to serve with Bosnian coffee is Turkish delights. However, you can serve the coffee with pretty much any pastry or even on its own. I usually go for Baklava with my coffee to balance out the bitterness.
While the process is well worth it, I typically only make myself Bosnian coffee occasionally. I tend to move around a lot and do not usually have access to a proper stove to make it. Though, if you have access to a stove, it is more than worth it to get yourself a džezva and start brewing that nice, delicious bean water!
