MEHMET EFENDİ

In 19th century Turkey, coffee was usually sold in the form of green coffee beans to be roasted at home in special pans and ground in hand-held coffee mills.

Mehmet Efendi was born in 1857, in the Fatih district of Istanbul. After completing his studies at the Süleymaniye Madrasa, he began working at the small spice shop that belonged to his father Hacı Hasan Efendi.

In 1871, Mehmet Efendi took over the family business from his father and began roasting and grinding the raw coffee beans in the shop, before packing the freshly ground coffee into small paper bags in front of his waiting customers.

Thanks to this innovation, Mehmet Efendi soon became famous as “Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi” – Coffee Roaster Mehmet Efendi.