Once upon a time, in the mid-15th century in Yemen, a Sufi man who went by the name of Eid discovered coffee beans, learned how to turn them into a beverage by boiling in water, and taught that to his followers. Ever since then, Sufis have taken over the job of spreading this beverage throughout the Islamic world.
No matter how strongly religious Muslim leaders, who were later followed by medical academies in Europe, tried to keep this beverage from spreading, it always managed to find allies for itself, especially in the Sufis who found out that it helped them perform their rituals. As for the Kanakah, the pot in which coffee is boiled, it's a Turkish design that looks like a Sufi dancing and twirling in his flaring garments. Since the Ottoman era, when Kanakahs were made from gold even in common coffeehouses, this design gradually spread far and wide. Turkish coffee became the standard throughout the East and, until not too long ago, there was no other way of making coffee. In essence, the Turkish method is actually attributed to the design of the Kanakah itself, which consists of a wide base and a narrow neck, as if it resembles a Sufi's waist. This design is what produces that condensed surface layer, a distinguishing feature of Turkish coffee which was not known before the realization of this design. Previously, coffee was made by boiling the ground seeds in a container that looks like an Arabian Dellah, or a pot which a coffee-man carried and walked around with in marketplaces, offering it in cups along with tobacco Shisha (argyles).
A Kanakah has three parts made of yellow brass: the base, which has a round shape; the body, which consists of a rectangular piece molded according to the desired shape and size and welded with silver to the round base; and then the narrow neck, which is shaped and wrought until it takes the required form. At the end, the handle, which is typically made of copper or wood, is soldered to the ensemble, followed by bleaching the inside of the Kanakah by tin bleach, giving it a silvery look from the inside, while a copper polish of its outer surface will suffice. It may or may not be decorated. The Kanakah was often imported from Istanbul. Nowadays, however, it's mostly made of aluminum due to high copper prices. These days, a Kanakah-maker doesn't go through all that trouble -- he merely produces a round piece of copper or aluminum, shapes it on a lathe which has an iron template of the required shape, then comes the polishing and handle attachment without any solders. Kanakahs come in different sizes. Some of them can hold only one cup, others take up to ten cups, and it's the skillful coffee-maker who can pour the ten cups and make sure they all have a Wesh(the surface layer) -- that is the first test a coffeehouse owner would put a new worker through, since serving coffee without a wesh is unacceptable to some people, who believe that it's the source of good coffee flavor. The design of the Kanakah neck itself helps keep the wesh, as it preserves just enough of it for the last cup.
