Too Much Coffee

First day here and I've got to ask a question....

My favourite way of consuming coffee is something like Turkish coffee. That means take a mug, heat it with some hot water (not only the teapot needs pre-heating) in particular in this cold season and Welsh weather, put some coffee grounds in and fill up with boiling water. I got into this habit observing it in Indonesia where this is the usual method.

The problem is getting appropriately ground coffee. Pre-ground in vac bags, asides from usually being stale, is far to coarse. Friends who I expose to the method of preparation usually get very distorted faces once the get near the end of the cuppa.....

Cutting to the bone - I need a grinder that pulverizes the bean. Technically 0.1mm grain size and smaller, standard drip is around 0.5mm - boulders for Turkish brews. Having read around a few names crop up repeatedly. Mazzer - beyond my budget; Solis or MC2 - does they grind fine enough? And the new kid on the block the KitchenAid Aritsan. At least one review wrote that it's suited for Turkish coffee.

Anybody with experience?

Thanks,
Martin

In and around the eastern Mediterannean countries people drink "Turkish Coffee" and almost all of them grind it by hand. A Zassenhaus hand grinder can grind to powder (<0.05mm), something that most inexpensive electrical grinders cannot do.

"Powdered coffee" for Turkish can be bought in plastic bags, however, as fine as it is it is bound to be stale as you pointed out.

Zassenhaus is either out of business or not producing grinders at the moment, but if you are interested I will be glad to find a new or used one here in Germany. The price is usually less than 40 Euros incl. postage.

I hunted around for info on ZassenHaus last night, following my post asking what had become of them. One German site I stumbled across was http://www.classic-caffee.de; as far as I can tell they have 161-MA's in stock (60Euros), but my German's exceptionally poor.

I also came across a website in the UK (can't remember where it was now and google won't oblige) which suggested that there'd been a management buyout and they wouldn't be restocked until the dust settled.

Having seen the Kitchen Aid in action it really isn't suited for Turkish, it just doesn't get fine enough. Bruce is right, use a good hand grinder as they really do pulverise the bens. There are some Turkish Grinders on E-bay around too, although the Zass is probably the best around. I use my old Salter for Turkish and it is great.

Thanks all for the first tips - yep, I had come across the Zassenhaus too. But I must admit being a bit lazy.... years ago I had some hand mills - thought it was rather cool/nostalgic/alternative (oh, the past...) Remembering the effort of grinding, ehem....

btw my German is pretty good, I am more or less bi-lingual... So Bruce if you happen to stumble upon one..... Though I am probably going to by the one from http://www.classic-caffee.de/. I also had found something (where....?????) saying Zassenhaus is in administration... Gossip? So maybe quickly buy from classic cafe...

Martin

Couldn't cope with flood of info, forgot to reply to a couple of things.

Some Greek company is selling hand grinders on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Big-Turkish-Coffe ... 0036495130

Certainly cheap, but £25 wasted is also no good. Anyone with any experience on these?

Some hand mill went through ebay a few days ago £62.. Scary! Other have been in the £10 scale - but I am very weary of 'decorative' mills... Had one of those in the past too....

And lastly thanks for the warning about the KitchenAid to espressomattic

Just had another look at the http://www.classic-caffee.de/ website. They have now included Peugeot hand operated grinders. Anybody know anything about them?? Judging by the logo, its the same company as the cars..... Market diversification?

Like Bruce said, you cannot find a "simple" grinder, not even a Mazzer, that can grind fine enough for a Turkish ground.
To find more details on "Turkish" fineness: http://www.gebrand.nl/PDF/TurkseKoffieart.pdf
The advice to find a hand driven machne is the best, unless you want to spend some real money on a real machine: http://www.gebrand.nl/Molen.htm

I had seen that document on your website already. But the MPE grinder is really beyond my budget - and capacities that I need... Unfortunately the Has Garanti are also.... Though they look reaaallly nice.

Handgrinder it is! I have just placed an order http://www.classic-caffee.de/ for a Peugot. I've been told the grinding mechanism is produced by the same company that does the Zassenhaus ones. Actually they are supposed to be the same.

A side note the PDF (?) has some problems - the middle page has some blank spots on very exciting parts and it is in the pdf twice.
Unfortunately http://www.teacoffeeasia.com/ does not have that particular article online - any chance of getting a better pdf???? Thanks!

Hey Fuzzface,

I got myself a peugot pepper grinder about a year back on my trip to brussels. Its a fantastic piece of kit and the grinding mechanism has a lifetime warranty.

I'm hoping the coffee grinder will be of similar quality and may also have a similar warranty. Please keep us posted and let us know how it goes!

Toast