Meet the man in Mong Kok brewing Turkish coffee on sand (video)

Meet the man in Mong Kok brewing Turkish coffee on sand (video)

You know the old saying about cooking with gas? Well, for good traditionally brewed Turkish coffee, you’re going to want sand, and not just the stuff from the beach.

“If you use sea sand, it makes the coffee bitter,” says Guner Buran, the owner of Coffee on the Sand, as he slowly brings the coffee to boil, dragging the copper cezve, a traditional coffee pot, through the hot sand. Both the sand and the machine he uses to heat are imported from his native Turkey.

“Turkish coffee must be mixed in the cooking time very well. It must be cooked slowly, for the best coffee.”

As the grounds aren’t filtered out, Turkish coffee is thicker and stronger than most coffee (though Guren has a non-caffeinated blend for those who want to “drink for hours” and still sleep).

Brewing it in sand, an ancient technique, evens out the heat and makes it possible to better control the temperature and slowly bring the liquid to boil, lending itself to a smooth and flavorful brew.

Guner’s street coffee cooker. Picture: I Love Istanbul

Coconuts HK first met Buran plying his trade streetside in Mong Kok amid the bustle of vendors serving crowds during the Lunar New Year festival.

Though he often takes his coffee cart to Hong Kong’s streets, the 40-year-old runs the business from his restaurant on nearby Tung Choi street called I Love Istanbul, an intimate first-floor eatery with a handful of tables where Buran serves up his favourite Turkish dishes, like tatuni, a mix of finely chopped meat and vegetables wrapped in flatbread and a speciality of his native city of Mersin in Turkey’s south.

So, to truly enjoy some of Buran’s blend and find out more about how he wound up in Hong Kong, we decided to pay a visit this week and have a chat over coffee and Turkish delight.

The famous sweet treat, it turns out, provides a good starting point for his story in the city.

Visiting for a holiday 10 years ago, Buran said he sensed a good market for products from his homeland. He returned with Turkish delights and set up shop in Tsuen Wan. The idea to start a restaurant, he said, came on his lunch break, or more accurately, because of it.

“I’m hungry, I need to cook myself something right? So when I cook, the people come for the smell and say ‘what’s that?’ I say ‘this is food, I’m not selling this.’ They say ‘give us some.’

“One day, one person comes. After she eats, another day she brings friends. I think ‘why am I just selling candy? I think I need to open a restaurant.”

Though, based on this anecdote, it might appear like Buren made an inadvertent entry into the hospitality game, it’s actually quite the opposite.

Buren studied tourism and hotel management from the age of 16. He earned a university degree in the subject in Istanbul and spent more than a decade managing food and beverage divisions for luxury hotels in his native country.

Seven of those years, he said, were spent at the upscale Amara Dolce Vita in Antalya on the Mediterranean Sea, overseeing 18 bars, 10 restaurants and 400 staff. His favorite role, he added, was behind the bar, mixing up the cocktails.

“Bartender for me, it’s the best job, like the Tom Cruise Cocktail movie. It’s electric. Also, I was handsome… when you are on the backside of the bar, you look like the boss and a bartender must keep secrets. I like to listen.”

And though he says he misses the rush of the hotel resorts, not to mention the parties, he now enjoys keeping things low key, running the coffee business, catering for events, and getting to know the diners who stop by his restaurant or the occasional pop-up locations he organizes around town.

“I wanted to find something different,” he said. 

“If you work at some place under people, you do something good and the manager comes and says ‘I don’t like it, change it.’ I don’t want to make [a manager’s] ego happy, I want to make guests happy. That’s why I choose to do something myself.”

I Love Istanbul/Coffee on the Sand

Address: 1/F, Room A, 9-15 Tung Choi Street Mong Kok (Near 23 Soy Street, Mong Kok E2,Yau Ma Tei A2 exit)
Contact: +852-68007776 (Whatsapp)

 

 




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