Mini-hotel Dilara-Hanum, Bakhchisaray, Crimea

Tatar coffee is complex. Everyone here is a coffee addict, as every friends chat starts with a cup of coffee, of course. Main features of the Tatar coffee are that the beans must be freshly baked, very fine-grounded, better on a hand grinder, and cooked slowly by putting a tea spoon of coffee in boiling water. Lately many people started cooking coffee on hot sand, claiming that this way the coffee is heated more slowly, and becomes tastier. But this may be a little too exotic.

People here dring coffee in very small china cups, usually with some skim milk and raw sugar in pieces. Goes very well with the Tatar butter cookies - kurabie.

Our coffe is good, and a nice talk that usually goes together with it is even better. However, for the best coffee in Crimea you would have to travel to Kezlev (Evpatoriia). There, in the Odun Kapisi coffee house, which sits on the second floor of the recently restored gate tower of the city, they make coffe that is truly unforgettable.