The ibrik — also called cezve in Turkish, briki in Greek, and džezva across the Balkans — is a small long-handled pot used to brew coffee directly over a heat source. The technique is one of the oldest still practiced, traceable to the Ottoman coffeehouses of the sixteenth century, and remains central to coffee culture from Istanbul to Sarajevo to Athens.
Unlike almost every other brewing method, the grounds are not filtered out. Very finely ground coffee, near-powder, goes into the pot with cold water and is heated slowly until it foams up. The heat is pulled, the foam settles, and the pot is returned to the heat one or two more times. The brew is then poured into small cups where the grounds settle at the bottom and the drinker stops before reaching them.
A single-serve recipe: 7 g of coffee ground to Turkish fineness, 70 ml of cold water (optional pinch of sugar added at the start, never after), into a 100 ml ibrik. Heat on low until the first foam rises, pull from the heat for 20 seconds, return once more. Pour into the cup, let the grounds settle for 30 seconds, drink. The cup is intensely aromatic, heavy-bodied, and carries the cardamom, sugar, or saffron that many regional traditions add to the pot during the first heat.