Coffee or Tea
This morning, we treated ourselves to a morning walk to the Starbucks on Istiklal street. There are 36 Starbucks in Istanbul and so far, we have seen only his one. It’s in a trendy area and it seems to be full of business people and private school teens.
During the afternoons, the pedestrianized street looks like this:
In the mornings, it is much less crowded so that we are able to walk without concentrating on not running into other tourists or Turks. Most stores seem to be open again after the end-of-Ramazan celebrations, so it’s nice to window shop again for clothes and shoes, scarves and tea, baklava, tree-trunk sized kebaps and turkish delight.
We don’t go for Starbucks very often here because of the option of going for tea. Served scalding hot, with two lumps of sugar in a small glass, our tea breaks have been something I look forward to each day. In our favourite tea shop, a short walk up the hill, there are boardgames and backgammon boards for people to use while sipping and puffing on hookahs. It’s cozy inside, with lounging cushions and pillows on the floor in a couple of rooms, and booths and easy chairs in the front and back. Such an enjoyable ritual to adopt.