Cultural Post 2

[Nile Harris]

In one of our sessions with my language partner, he asked us if we liked coffee. My other classmate, who is Italian, loves coffee. Apparently, coffee is a huge part of Italian culture. I am personally not a fan of coffee. I hate the way tastes. My language partner said that he was thinking about doing a session on Turkish coffee culture. Even though I do not like coffee, I was very curious to see what Turkish coffee was really about. Coffee is a huge part of the Turkish culture. It is used as a social outlet. Friends and family spend hours on end at coffee shops just sitting there talking and laughing, and enjoying time together. It is similar to the vibes of a bar in the United States. My language partner also explained how coffee readings are a technique that guys use to pickup girls. Girls like coffee readings and horoscopes. It is a form of fortune telling similar to what palm readers use for palm reading, and what psychics use to tell the future. Turkish people love their coffee black as hell and strong as death. So in our session, Görkem made our coffee and served to us in his authentic Turkish coffee dishes. The dishes were very similar to what is used for espresso shots (though it is not called that in Turkish). I drank it and it was extremely bitter. After drinking it, there were coffee grinds at the bottom of the cup. We would then proceed to turn our cups over onto the saucer and let the coffee grinds make distinct patterns all over the cup and saucer. Then we had to wait a few minutes for it to cool down. After it cooled, we picked the saucer and cup up and rotated it three times counterclockwise. We then flipped the turned the cup over either away from you or towards you. If you turn it away from you, the coffee reader will talk about your future and if you turn it towards you, the coffee reader will talk about your past. I turned mine away from me to see what my future held for me. Görkem looked at the distinct patterns in the cup and said that I would have a celebration of sorts soon and that I will be very stable. For me the celebration could represent me graduating college, and I also have a very stable household. I then proceeded to do a coffee reading for my classmate. I told him that I saw a ladder in his cup which meant that he would metaphorically climb a ladder soon. He said he literally has to climb a ladder to clean his gutters. I also saw a river in his cup which means that he will travel somewhere soon. This is actually how we learned to form the future tense of verbs. Overall, I enjoyed doing the coffee readings with my peers. Hopefully, I will be able to travel to Turkey and actually do one with a Turkish girl.