Turkey, and Istanbul in particular, has a thriving coffee shop culture, and a pretty distinct take on coffee itself.
It’s a lot like Vietnamese coffee, thick, strong, served in small cups, but with one small difference: the texture.
Where Vietnamese coffee is very smooth, Turkish coffee is rough, almost like drinking orange juice with pulp. It’s good!
As good as Turkish coffee is, Istanbul’s coffee shop scene is even better. Everywhere you go, people are sitting at tables outside, sipping on cups of coffee, chatting. It wasn’t warm when I was there either. The Turks are pretty devoted to this ritual, it would seem. I can respect that. I love coffee shops and everything associated with that world.
Istanbul, especially in neighborhoods like Kadıköy, is packed with coffee shops, and today we're going to do a special feature on one that stood out as being special...
WALTER’S COFFEE ROASTERY
Address: Caferaga Mah Badem No:21, Park Altı Sk, 34710, Turkey
This is, indeed, a Breaking Bad themed coffee shop. I was skeptical about it when my friend told me about it, months before I even arrived, but it did not disappoint. The menus were made to look like periodic table. The walls looked like the chalk board of my high school chemistry class. And if that wasn’t enough, they have a “meth cooker” room, complete with a few yellow suits just laying, waiting for you to try them on.
Oh yeah, and the coffee is good too, as is the food. They were actually fundraising to open a location in Brooklyn, New York. Walter’s Coffee will be opening it’s U.S. location in the summer of 2016. Take it from me, this will be the crowning jewel of Brooklyn when it happens. Brooklyn-ites out there, keep your eyes peeled.
Coffee On The Bosphorus
Walter’s is good, but this might be more “the classic” when it comes to Istanbul.
Along the Kadıköy coastline (and lots of other places too I’m sure), in addition to rows of men with fishing poles, you will see a few levels of coffee joints leading down the banks of the Bosporus. You get coffee or tea, and just relax as Istanbul floats by you. There will be rugs and cushions on the ground, in true Middle Eastern fashion, and men will walk by selling the quintessential, thin Turkish bagels. They’ll never pressure you to buy anything though, which was a nice change of pace for me.
Here a few pictures I took from chilling there with my coffee. It was a grey day, but that is perhaps the most authentic demeanor of Istanbul—dreariness.
