Hajrudin Burek is the man who can tell you the story about the customs of drinking coffee in Sarajevo coffee shops and about traditional way of preparing coffee.
When you walk through the old town of Sarajevo, you must feel the scent of coffee. Coffee shop Dibek proves that this is the most beautiful scent for all lovers of good coffee and it is the only coffee shop of its kind left in Sarajevo. The Burek family preserves and nourishes the tradition that dates back more than one century.
“The business was launched in 1895 by grandfather Mušo, my wife’s grandfather, and has been conveyed from generation to generation ever since. My son will be the fourth generation that deals with this business in the family,” said Hajrudin Burek, owner of the coffee shop and the keeper of family tradition.
In this shop, coffee is roasted and pestled in traditional way every day.
“First we carefully select the raw coffee, then we roast it in a big mill, and then spread it across a wooden surface and leave it to dry for 24 hours. After that, the coffee is pestled in a 150-years-old stone pestle, a memory from grandfather Mušo,” Burek says.
Grandfather Mušo used to own a coffee shop in Vratnik, the oldest coffee shop in the city. Nobel Prize laureate Ivo Andrić visited that coffee shop and bestowed the owner with a signed book, and the famous travel writer Zuko Džumhur also used to come, and he wrote: “Here the coffee is roasted and pestled, by whom ever dares and is allowed to do it” (“Ovdje se kahva tuca i pije, ko može i ko smije”), and that inscription still decorates a wall of the coffee shop.
Burek says that this business is just as hard as any other, but that a man who wants to work and who needs a job finds nothing too difficult to be done.
“I come to the coffee shop at seven every morning and start preparing everything for the day. My son helps me and I enjoy this job,” Burek added.
There are many customers in his coffee shop, mostly the permanent ones. During the summer period, the most enthusiastic buyers are the Turks, who are fascinated by the fact that there still exists a place where coffee is traditionally roasted, pestled, packed and eventually made.
(Source: akta.ba)
