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Cyprus Passion About Cyprus Food Heritage

Cyprus coffee

The briki, the froth and the glass of cold water

Cyprus coffee is not a drink you order quickly. The method resists it: finely ground beans and water go into a small long-handled pot called a briki, set over a low flame and brought to the boil slowly. Hurry it and you lose the froth, which is the whole point.

What arrives is thick and dark in a small cup, with a glass of cold water beside it. The water is not an afterthought — it clears the palate between sips.

A ritual before a drink

Preparing and serving coffee here is a practice passed down through generations, and it is fundamentally social — the reason people sit down together rather than the thing they happen to be holding. UNESCO has recognised it as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Cyprus, which is a formal way of saying the ritual matters as much as the cup.

Where to drink it

The kafeneio is the traditional setting: the village coffee house where locals gather, drink and talk, often for considerably longer than the coffee takes. Speciality coffee shops and markets abroad increasingly stock it too, but the kafeneio is where the drink makes sense.

Small cup, cold water, no hurry.

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