This is one of those facts that somehow evades the internet, which might mean it’s not a fact. But I refuse to accept that – a Greek man once told it to me on the island of Crete and he was tremendously old and had a shotgun in his car. It’s the explanation as to why Greek coffee is as it is.
Coffee, he said, has been around for an age, but it only came to Europe in the 1500s with the invading Ottoman Turks. Now, at this point in history the Ottoman Empire for the most part took Islam as its religion, while the Greeks were practising Orthodox Christianity (courtesy of the Byzantine Empire, aka, the Romans). This religious clash gave rise to a class system wherein the ruling Turks were rich, the subjugated Greeks poor, hence the only way for the average Greek to get coffee was to take their Ottoman masters’ used grounds, dry them out, re-grind them extra fine, then rebrew.
Corfu sucks up the tourists, meaning that as much as any place you’ll find in Western Europe, Epirus is that horribly cliched word: authentic
The result is the siltier-than-the-Nile Ellinikos kafe I’m tentatively sipping amid the morning commuters in a cafe in Ioannina, dressed in full kit, helmet on the table, bike propped nearby, doing a terrible job of blending in with the locals.
I am at least sat with a genuine Greek, Pavlos, who works at the hotel I’m staying at as a sort of all-purpose guide. Pavlos will take you catamaran sailing, cliff jumping, wreck diving, ultrarunning, sea kayaking
