Chickpea coffee draws attention after 100 years

ÇANAKKALE

Chickpea coffee, made by grinding chickpeas, is attracting great attention with its flavor a century later in a village of the northwestern province of Çanakkale’s Biga district.

The unusual coffee was invented 100 years ago in the midst of World War I when coffee imports to Turkey had stalled.

Despite more than a century having passed since the bloody war, this flavor is kept alive in coffee houses in Biga’s Işıkeli village, which has a population of 160.

Cemil Kısa, 50, who runs a coffeehouse in the village, said that chickpea coffee is made only in their village and is on great demand from visitors.

He said that the tourists who came to visit Işıkeli would rest and enjoy the century-old chickpea coffee in the village, which has three coffeeshops.

“The coffee’s release date is the 1915s, those periods when coffee could not be imported. Our grandparents roasted the chickpeas into a coffee and started drinking so as not to be deprived of that pleasure,” Kısa said.

“We have carried the chickpea coffee tradition to the present day,” he added.

A cup of chickpea coffee made in the coffee shop is sold for 2.5 Turkish Liras ($ 0.35) and half a kilogram package is for 10 liras ($ 1.40).