On March 24th, 2022, The Yunus Emre Institute USA (YEE) hosted a Turkish Coffee Happy Hour in collaboration with The #UniversityOfIllinois. Doctor Ayşe Ozcan, Director and Language Coordinator for the Turkish Program in the Department of Linguistics opened the session talking about the long standing collaboration that has been ongoing with the university and how we are looking to many more collaborations together.
Jocelyne Ndianabo, YEE’s office manager presented the program outline and dove right into the subject of Turkish coffee. During this session, the students learned about the historical and #CulturalSignificance of Turkish coffee, learned about the brewing process of #TurkishCoffee and finally competed with each other in a head-to-head trivia competition in which the winner received an authentic Turkish coffee set!
The students engaged in a lively #Cultural discussion by bringing to light different countries that also have coffee culture to address some of the similarities and differences that can be found. Some of the students asked questions about Turkish coffee #Etiquette for instance if adding any spices or other ingredients to your Turkish coffee would be perceived as gauche or not to your host. Another student asked about world renown #TurkishHoney and if it can be added to Turkish coffee when brewing. As the discussion went on, a forty-year-old friendship was built by sharing culture and ideas together.
The program concluded with Jocelyne and Doctor Ozcan thanking the students for participating in the discussion today and to look forward to many more discussions in the future.