Turek & Plujka (Glass Coffee)

Turek in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and plujka in Poland, is coffee at its most basic: ground coffee put straight into a cup or glass, hot water poured over it, and a wait while the grounds sink to the bottom. No pot, no filter, no machine. It’s often called “Turkish coffee” (turecká káva, kawa po turecku), though it has almost nothing to do with real Turkish coffee. In Poland it earned the nickname plujka, “spit-it-out”, after the grounds that end up between your teeth. Here’s how to make it, how to make it better, and why it became the coffee of the Eastern Bloc.

The short version

• Ground coffee in a cup or glass, hot water on top.
• Wait a few minutes for the grounds to settle.
• Not boiling water: about 92 to 96°C tastes better.
• Leave the sludge at the bottom.
• A communist-era staple that’s still made at home, in pubs and at kiosks.

How do you make turek?

The everyday method is simply coffee in a cup and water from the kettle. The Slovak news agency SITA gives these steps for a better cup:

1. Warm the cup. A warm cup keeps the coffee’s temperature steady.
2. Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of finely ground coffee, ideally a grind sold for pour-on coffee.
3. Use water at about 92 to 96°C, not boiling. Boiling water can give the coffee a burnt bitterness.
4. Pour half the water first, and let the coffee “bloom” for a few seconds.
5. Top up gently with a circular pour.

Then wait. The Czech coffee seller Green Plantation suggests leaving it no longer than about four minutes and then separating the coffee from the grounds, for example by pouring it into a second cup, rather than letting it stew.

Why is it called Turkish coffee?

Because the grounds stay in the cup, as they do in real Turkish coffee. But the method is different. As SITA explains, traditional Turkish coffee is very finely ground coffee heated slowly with water in a cezve (džezva), rising gently towards the boil without boiling. Turek is just poured, not heated. Expats.cz puts it bluntly: Czech-style turek “has no connection to a proper Turkish coffee”. Rzeczpospolita says the same of plujka: the name “Turkish-style coffee” has “little to do with brewing it in Turkey”.

How did turek and plujka become so common?

In Czechoslovakia, Expats.cz describes turek as “a holdover from the communist era”, which gained popularity after the war “when private roasters were nationalized and quality coffee was scarce”. Green Plantation adds that cafés, restaurants and roasters were all nationalised, coffee machines were beyond many people’s budgets, and the coffee in the jar was usually a cheap blend, mostly Robusta with a little Arabica. Pouring water on grounds needed no equipment at all.

In communist Poland, cafés were rare. Rzeczpospolita quotes one coffee lover: if you wanted to invite friends for coffee in those days, you “could drink a plujka at the railway station” or splash out on a hotel restaurant. Coffee drinkers split into two camps: fans of plujka, and fans of instant coffee, which quickly won.

Plujka even has a place in history. At Warsaw’s tiny Café Snob, the PIW publishing house buffet at Foksal 17, coffee was made “Turkish-style” in glasses with grounds that stuck to your teeth, Super Biznes reports. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir sat at its tables in 1962, and the “Letter of 34” intellectuals to the communist leader Gomułka was written there in 1964. After March 1968, the authorities closed the café and had it walled up.

Is it still drunk today?

Yes. Expats.cz wishes its readers a happy International Coffee Day with “pour yourself a turek”, and Green Plantation notes that despite drip brewers and French presses, turek “still holds its place of honour” in Czech homes. It’s rarely served in cafés any more, but you’ll still find it at home, in pubs and at kiosks.

General guidance only. Take care with hot water, and sip gently: the grounds settle, but they don’t disappear.

Turek vs other methods

• Turkish coffee: very fine coffee heated in a cezve, the real thing.
• Coffee in a teapot: steeped, then strained, the English way.
• Cowboy coffee: grounds and water together in a pot.
• Coffee cupping: the professional version of grounds in a cup.

Explore every immersion method in the immersion chapter.