Guide
The Beta Yeni Han 1554 Coffee Museum opened on 5 December 2024 — World Turkish Coffee Day — inside the Beta Yeni Han at Tahtakale, and the ministry calls it İstanbul's first coffee museum.
The claim behind it is larger than that. The han opened in 1554 and is still in use, and on the historical and architectural evidence the ministry describes it as the earliest coffeehouse known anywhere, and as representing the point at which Ottoman coffeehouse culture began. The supporting argument is circumstantial but specific: place names in the district tied to coffee, such as Tahmis; the continuity of social and commercial functions connected with coffeehouses there; and traces of coffeehouses recorded on the Goad and Pervititch insurance maps.
The find that made the museum possible came out of the restoration. Excavation uncovered a stone-built oven in a section added to the han later, and the work concluded that it was the first oven known to have roasted coffee, in 1554 — which is why the building has come to be described as the zero point of coffee.
Visitors follow the history of coffee production and can look at the equipment used to make it. Also shown are replicas of the cups used by Atatürk and by Abdülhamid II, together with cups used at the Ottoman palace in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
Visit status for this record: open to visitors.
