Israeli Coffee Culture: A Caffeinated Guide

Israelis drink coffee the way they argue: constantly, loudly, and on terraces. The country's cafe culture is one of its great pleasures - and it comes in more layers than most visitors expect.

The old-school cup is kafo botz, "mud coffee": finely ground coffee simmered straight in a small glass or cup, Middle Eastern style, with the grounds settling at the bottom like sediment. Every household and every roadside restaurant makes it, and grandma's version outranks any cafe. The name comes from the Turkish and Moroccan immigrants who brought it in the 1950s.

Then there is hafuch - literally "upside-down" - the Israeli take on the cappuccino, steamed milk poured over a double espresso. Order it and you are speaking fluent local. Other essential vocabulary: "nes" for black instant coffee (a legacy of the Nescafe generation), kafo Turkish for botz, and iced coffee (pronounced kafo kar) which is a sweet blended milkshake-like drink, not what you expect.

The big chains - Aroma, Cafe Cafe, Landwer - are everywhere and genuinely good, but the character is in the kiosks. Israel invented the street kiosk cafe: a hole in a wall on a traffic island that serves better coffee than most European cafes, all day and late into the night. Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard alone has enough of them to keep you caffeinated for a week.

Ethiopian Israelis brought their own ceremony: buna, coffee roasted and brewed fresh, poured in three rounds with salted popcorn on the side. In Haifa, a city built on hills and terraces, cafe culture has a slower Mediterranean rhythm - ask us and we will point you to the courtyards. On any of our tours, a coffee stop with a view is always on the itinerary.