Enjoy a traditional Cypriot coffee shop experience
We are sure that a latte, a cappuccino, an Americano, or an iced latte to go are part of your daily routine. Well-known companies compete to offer the best quality and variety in both coffee and brewing methods. However, no coffee compares to the delight and relief of a tired farmer who goes to a coffee shop to enjoy a delicious Cypriot coffee artfully roasted and brewed among embers in a traditional bronze coffee pot.
Deputy Ministry of Tourism, © Deputy Ministry of Tourism.
When entering a traditional coffee shop to try the local coffee, a small cup with its saucer and the requisite glass of water will come to your table on a tin tray. There will be a small quarrel between the Cypriot guests to decide whose treat your coffee will be. You might be wondering why some perfect strangers who you are seeing for the first time in your life would want to buy you a cup of coffee. The hospitality that the Cypriots are famous for is the reason. The locals consider it their honor to have you in their village or local coffee shop for the first time. Your polite refusal may be considered an insult, so kindly accept their offer – and that is where the real experience begins.
The best English will start a conversation with you and of course translate for those who have no knowledge of your language. They will ask you about your background, your profession, your family, and much more, and will eventually come to current affairs and international politics. In such places, all the problems that beset the planet are solved in simple, everyday ways. On the other hand, the discussion can be more heated if the issue is still hot and people have different opinions about it.
If such a discussion does not arise, there may be a game of backgammon. In a corner of the coffee shop, you may see two people sitting around a small table with a backgammon board on it. Several other people carefully watching the game may be gathered around the players, giving advice, joking with one another, getting all worked up over the outcome of the game, and waiting until one of the two players loses, so that they can play the winner. If you approach them too, someone will undertake the task of explaining the rules of the game and its philosophy and joke about the performance of the players.
If you already know how to play backgammon, you’ll have a lot of respect in the eyes of the bystanders, and you will quickly become one with them.