Starting a happy family: Salty coffee
Have you read the heart-touching salty coffee? If not, please read it first. That story is about a happy family that started after drinking a salty coffee. Serving such a salty coffee is a ritual in Turkish culture. As expected, the world-famous Turkish coffee plays a major role in this ritual. Let’s see how a salty coffee starts a happy family.
Prior to the ceremony of betrothal and engagement, two families of prospective bride and groom come together to drink coffee in the bride’s home and get a verbal confirmation of the marriage. Such a coffee drinking ceremony between elderly people is the official start of the marriage process. It happens all the time in the evening. Each side has their dinner themselves and comes together to drink coffee.
The prospective groom’s family notify the bride’s family and request for a visit and drink coffee together. If the other side accepts it and invites them for coffee drinking, it shows informal approval of the marriage.
On this evening, extreme care is taken to include among those who will visit the prospective bride’s family such as respectful persons who could not be refused by the bride’s family, together with close relatives of the prospective groom’s family. Generally, elderly members of families, specifically grandparents of each side are present in this ceremony.
The groom’s family conducts the visit with a bunch of best spring flowers and a stylish packet of chocolate. Both groom and bride prepare for the evening: the groom shaves well and dresses well, generally wears a suit. Also, pride dresses well for this special evening.
Coffee service
The coffee is an essential part of this ceremony. The flavor of coffee and its service shows how prospective pride is skillful. Therefore, the bride prepares the coffee and serves to the suitor and his elders meticulously. She knows that the taste and quality of the coffee and the manner it is served would be closely watched as indications of her skillfulness. Specifically, coffee foam is an indication of how skillful she is. Because of that, she tries to prepare her best coffee ever. It should leave a life-time lasting taste.
Here is a tricky point in this ceremony. When everybody drinks the coffee and enjoy the time of such an unforgettable ceremony, it is time to test the prospective groom’s patience and see how much he endures for his prospective wife. The bride prepares the groom’s coffee with salt, not sugar. The groom must drink such a salty coffee as if he is not aware of salt in it.
The salty coffee service is the most fun part of the evening. Every groom expects to be served salty coffee but acts as if he is unaware. There are those who exaggerate the salty coffee ritual. For example, there are those who put black pepper, cumin, red pepper, oil, sugar, egg yolk, or honey in addition to salt. Let’s wish patience to the grooms who face such a situation.
After the coffee service, the father or grandfather of the groom starts to talk about the reason for their visit.
The fact behind serving salty coffee
The ritual of asking for a girl’s hand in marriage is the first step for a happy family. It is the first step to establish a family with the participation of family elders and getting approval from each of them. It is a moment when preparations are made days ago, where both parties are waiting with excitement. It is the first rehearsal of wearing a wedding dress, which is the dream of every young girl.
Although salty coffee is tasteless, it is an expression of love. A silent expression of love … Even though salt is tasteless, coffee is always delightful. It gives the following message. “While there are unpleasant things in our life, like salt in the coffee, we will absorb it, like coffee absorbs the salt, and we always are happy. We will never let the salt spoil our happiness.”
Final words…
Beginning with serving a salty coffee, each nest should be long-lasting like salt, pleasant and happy like coffee…
