can you imagine starting the day without a cup of Turkish coffee? Or being invited to your friend’s or family and not getting offered a cup of coffee?

Coffee is ingrained in Lebanon’s culture. It’s part of the social fabric: the “sob7iyeh’ tradition, where neighbors and friends gather around a cup of coffee and gossip (and more often than not, cigarette!), is alive and well.

Coffee came to the region from Africa in the early 16th century — first to Yemen, then to Mecca, Cairo, Syria, and then to Turkey. Sufi mystics in Yemen used coffee as an aid to concentration when they chanted the name of God.

Turkish coffee is a misnomer: Turkey is just one of the countries where Turkish coffee is drunk.

Funnily enough, it was actually banned by the Ottoman Empire from the end of the 16th century till the beginning of the 19th century.

Source: BBC