Here is a simple post regarding Bosnian traditions.
The picture you are seeing here is not a picture of a coffee mug, but a picture of an traditional event in Bosnia.
I don’t know of any other place in the world where coffee is consumed in such a religious like manner as it is in Bosnia.
It is the place where the best coffee by far is to be found – not because of the grain used, but because of the way in which it is consumed and how people treat their coffee drinking.
Even though this mug and the little cup might look like something very special and hand crafted, they are not.
They can be found pretty much everywhere in Bosnia and are intended for general consumption purposes.
Older and more special Bosnian coffee drinking tradition is based around a special dish which was placed in the middle of the room where coffee was being consumed.
The dish was used for keeping coffee warm for a long period of time and coffee drinking took hours at the time and was very much an event (just like it is today, but in a kind of a different way).
Coffee drinking is a great example of how Bosnian people create something special out of otherwise seemingly every day thing we come across.
I personally see that as very special and something to be cherished and explained to as many people as possible.
In Bosnia everything is fairly special and treated as such by most people – birth of a new baby, a game of football, coffee drinking, fishing and so on.
The point I am trying to make here is that music is arguably something that was the key stone to the Bosnian traditions and because it is the only art that can directly influence human feelings, it is at the very soul of Bosnia.
Destruction of music and the musical heritage of Bosnia is like a form of destruction of Bosnian soul, and those who wanted to see Bosnia disappear from the face of this planet knew this and wanted to do everything to destroy the music as well as everything else!
This is one of the reasons why today I even see the consumption of coffee as a form of a sacred act!
Published on 8th March 2007
Hello
Andrew on 8th MarchI notice you wear a fez. I have recently read A Fez of the Heart by Jeremy Seal, which is about his travels in Turkey- apparently it was banned by Attaturk there. On the one occasion in the book he actually wore the Fez he was considered to be just a tourist and not serious.
I was wondering then about the position of the Fez in your country- whether it is similarly treated. Anyway, the book review is at
http://www.phy6.org/outreach/books/Fez.htm
it is a really good book very funny in parts too. Obviously not connected with your music or Bosnia but you might enjoy it!
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for commenting first of all.
Fez indeed was a traditional hat of Bosnians just over a century ago.
Nowadays it is considered outdated and bad looking piece of head gear, which is not worn by pretty much anyone in Bosnia, apart from those who know and understand what the ‘real deal’ is.
Your comment actually gives me a nice idea for one of the future posts on this blog.
Thanks for commenting and I will try and check out the book you recommended.
Mirza Basic - London Sevdah on 8th MarchI cannot agree more. I wrote a similar post about the coffee culture in Bosnia: Read
cd on 10th MarchMy fiance was really upset when his doctor told him to limit his coffee to one cup a day. He said ‘you make yourself coffee, but I shall not drink it in case we are invited out, I don’t want to refuse our host.’ I felt like a selfish person drinking coffee all alone while he drank chamomile tea! So I too cut back. Americans are big coffee drinkers too. This dates to the Revolutionary war. Some of my ancestors on my mother’s side were in that war. Tea was taxed and the people boycotted tea, but coffee was smuggled in by way of Dubrovnik, and Americans bought it in quantity since Dubrovnik was the first State to recognize the United States as an independant country, followed by Spain.
Yakima_Gulag on 22nd MarchAnyway our traditions of coffee are more casual than the Bosnian tradition, and frankly our coffee isn’t so good either. Once you drink Bosnian coffee, you are never the same!
Wow! Sounds serious.
I think that doctor would tell me to stop or at least cut down heavily on coffee if I talked to him about it, but I don’t smoke, don’t drink, so coffee is my only letting-the-steam-out activity.
Oh occassional sheesha (nargila) is done as well, I must admit.
Mirza Basic - London Sevdah on 22nd Marchhi there,
great post – I recently visited sarajevo and found it to be truly enchanting. I also had the luck to pop into a coffee shop and order myself a coffee (through pointing at a word on the menu that I thought meant coffee). it was a ‘traditional’ coffee, in that it wasn’t the standard coffee I receive in ireland. anyway, it was a great coffee in a great location! I actually bought a grinder and a serving cup before I left sarajevo, but haven’t managed to replicate the coffee I received. if you had any advice on exactly how to make the powerful coffee I received I’d greatly appreciate it. no sign of any exact info (save for the boiling) on the web. my email is damestreet at the domain gmail.com
many thanks for yourt great post,
md
md on 23rd SeptemberHell MD,
I don’t think there is any great secret to making ‘traditional’ Bosnian coffee.
Here are some things you might want to try out though:
Get yourself some raw coffee beans and bake them in the oven yourself. This will ensure that they are as fresh as possible.
When you are making coffee, using obviously ground coffee – maybe manually ground up – make sure you put lots of coffee into the water, so it is stronger once made. I usually put around 3-4 small spoons of coffee for every average tea cup of coffee I drink.
When you are making the coffee, make sure you are not treating it as making instant coffee. In other words, once you pour the boiling hot water from the kettle onto the ground beans, make sure the whole mixture is brought up to the boil at least once again in the pot. This will ensure that the ground coffee beans have given all their goodness out into the water.
Coffee will rise when it has boiled for a little while, so make sure that it does not spill over – nasty job cleaning it up later and it will smell – I rather like the smell of burning coffee.
When you are done with boiling, just let the whole thing settle down a little. The froth that is made on top when boiling coffee is taste, not something that should be filtered away as I have seen many people do.
Pour you coffee into the cup without any filtering, but after it has settled down. Make sure in each cup you have at least a little bit of the original froth that was created by the boiling process.
Pour some milk, if you like it, add sugar and off you go. You have something that can pretty much be called ‘traditional Bosnian coffee’.
Regards.
Mirza Basic on 23rd Septemberhey there,
many thanks for the info – it’s certainly got a few new tips in there that I wasn’t doing (generally I’ve been failing on strength, but I learnt pretty fast about the mess made when it boils over). the info’s certainly made a difference in taste though!
many thanks again,
md
md on 23rd October