A Cup of Coffee
A drink for every Israeli situation.
In the morning before work. In the army after training. In a business meeting. At home entertaining. At an intimate gathering. On a date. At an intimate meeting – before or after.
Black coffee or "Nescafe" (instant coffee). With regular milk or soy milk. With cake or a cookie. With sugar or saccharine. With or without a cigarette.
Coffee awakens, moves things along, organizes thoughts, revives, is addictive. It's easy to prepare. It has devotees and haters alike, but it's an essential line item on the menu.
What wine does for the French, beer for the English, and vodka for the Russians – coffee does for us, Israelis: Elite and Osem coffee, Landwer and Lavazza, Illy and Taster's Choice and Jacobs. There's espresso, and there's Latte (which Israelis call "Hafuch"), and there's filter coffee, and there's Nes-cafe, and Turkish coffee (also known as "Botz" – literally "mud," referring to the grounds), and Ethiopian and Brazilian and granular coffee – it all depends on habits, style, pose, and mood.
A cup of coffee is part of the maturation process for many Israelis, especially males.
Children and teenagers don't connect much with the dark drink, which has nothing exciting or tempting about it.
The serious connection with Israeli coffee begins in the IDF. During their military service, soldiers encounter it at meals and during breaks from training. Army coffee usually comes in its two basic forms: black ("Botz") or instant with milk. In recent decades, coffee machines have begun to be placed in every military camp.
After discharge from the army, when the discharged soldier is already a "Gever Gever" (a real man), who has absorbed the taste of coffee, he will increase his consumption and find the suitable way for it to be served to him or prepare it himself – in a small cup or a large cup. His acquired coffee-drinking habits will accompany him even when he finds a job and starts a family. If he has some free time, and wants to broaden his horizons – he might find himself diving into the wonderful world of coffee, its preparation, and consumption. He will meet connoisseurs, experts, and professionals who will know how to explain to him how water flow affects coffee taste, what not to do when roasting coffee, and what the secret charm of Ethiopian coffee is.
For Israeli women, the path is similar but with lower intensity.
They are pickier and might prefer tea, natural juice, or a herbal drink. During periods of breastfeeding and pregnancy, they are limited to one cup of coffee a day anyway, thus opening another gap between them and men.
And when he meets her and they start a family together, the coffee machine will be an inseparable part of their shared home space.
Coffee is a common media item in Israel.
From time to time, studies are published that definitively state that coffee is harmful to health, as well as studies that scientifically conclude that coffee is excellent for health. It all depends on who funded the research and who represents coffee in the mentioned item – whether they are coffee producers and importers or a competing drink, like tea, or if they are proponents of fruit juices and natural nutrition.
Either way, coffee is always on the agenda – on the counter or in the cabinet, in a cup or a jar, in a bag or in a machine. In coffee shops and coffee machines and the coffee corner in the kitchenette or kitchen.
Coffee Talk: Israeli Expressions
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Request: Can I have two Nescafes, please? For me, an 'Hafuch' in a large cup
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Serving: "How much sugar?"
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Offer: "Maybe you'll come for coffee?"
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Convincing optimism: "At most, we had coffee together."
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Cry for help: "I need a cup of coffee now before I collapse."
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In the slang of HaGashash HaHiver (the Pale Tracker comedy trio): "Want a little Turkish?
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A segment: "Coffee with the cigarette after."
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Nostalgia: "Coffee in a Finjan."
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Reserve duty: "Pakal Kafe (coffee kit) and a gas burner."
Historical Bits
Coffee is intertwined with the history of Israelis since the beginning of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel in the 20th century.
It integrated into the Mediterranean region where black coffee is common property and part of the daily routine of the Arab residents of the Land, neighboring countries, and the entire region.
New Jewish immigrants from Europe also knew the drink, from the big cities in the countries they came from – Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin. There were already coffee houses for the masses. Agile entrepreneurs and the wealthy in the Jewish Yishuv opened coffee houses that hosted the new settlers, and were a gathering point for bohemians.
During the underground movements that fought against the British Mandate rule, black coffee was part of the fighters' way of life.
The fighters prepared and drank it from a finjan pot, sitting around a campfire, in masculine camaraderie, and after the war, they told "Chizbatim" (tall tales/Campfire story) while the water boiled and was poured over the mud grains in the finjan kettle. The singer Yaffa Yarkoni sang one of her famous songs about it – "Shir HaFinjan" (The Finjan Song).
In the early years of the state, during the period of austerity, regular coffee disappeared from the home table, and instead Israelis drank a substitute produced from the chicory plant, called "Tzicoria."
After the austerity decrees ended, coffee returned to homes at an increased pace, conquering Israelis – those who were used to black coffee returned to the traditional "Botz," and those who looked to the wider world enthusiastically embraced instant coffee, which was easier to prepare.
In the late 1950s, a large coffee company, Elite, began to produce instant coffee itself in powder form in small or large tin cans. Coffee powder dominated the market until it lost its primacy to granular coffee, which arrived in a variety of forms and flavors.
The 2000s brought coffee machines into every home, and a rich variety to the shelves of every supermarket, allowing everyone to choose the coffee that suits them.
This is part of "The Israeli Story 1948-2025" project
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