Tahtakale Street Market

The Tahtakale Street Market in Istanbul is an ancient trading district beneath the old citadel walls where Istanbul's first coffeehouse opened around 1554. Following the 1453 conquest, Sultan Mehmet II rebuilt Tahtakale with marketplaces, warehouses, and the Tahtakale Hamam, Istanbul's oldest and largest bathhouse. Syrian merchants Hakem and Shams established coffee roasting on Tahmis Sokak in the sixteenth century. Before 1980, the district was also known for illegal foreign exchange dealing.

Istanbul · from the walk “Sultans, Spices & Hidden Streets” · audio ~4 min · Generated

Tahtakale, Uzunçarşı Cd., Fatih, İstanbul

When was the first coffeehouse opened in Istanbul's Tahtakale district?

Take a deep breath. Listen... Can you hear it? The clatter of pots, the buzz of haggling, the rumble of hand carts rolling over cobblestones. Welcome to Tahtakale.......... Now, the name itself hides a secret. Tahtakale comes from the Ottoman phrase "Taht-ul Kale"... meaning "beneath the castle." Because this market district literally sat below the walls of the old citadel, tumbling downhill toward the Golden Horn. And here's what makes this place extraordinary... it has been a trading hub not just since the Ottomans, but since the Byzantine era. The Ottomans inherited these Byzantine marketplaces and simply kept them running.......... When Sultan Mehmet the Second conquered Constantinople in fourteen fifty three, he rebuilt this district with Furious speed. A bedesten bazaar, caravanserais, warehouses, a hamam... all to feed and supply his new imperial capital. One of those structures, the Tahtakale Haman, still stands nearby. It is the oldest and largest bathhouse in Istanbul! But for decades in the twentieth century... it was used as a cold storage warehouse for cheese. Cheese! In a five hundred year old marble bathhouse. It was finally restored in nineteen eighty eight and converted into a small shopping center.......... Now, here is perhaps the most delicious detail of all. Istanbul's First coffeehouse opened right Here in Tahtakale, around fifteen fifty four! Two Syrian merchants, one named Hakem from Aleppo and another called Shams from Damascus, set up large shops and began serving coffee. The Ottoman historian Ibrahimi Pechevi recorded their names. The street where they roasted their beans? It's called Tahmis Sokak... which literally translates to "Roasted and Ground Coffee Street."

...... Before nineteen eighty, this neighborhood was also famous for something less legal... underground foreign exchange dealing, back when currency trading was banned in Turkey. Merchants would whisper rates in doorways like spies. When the ban was lifted, that shadowy trade vanished... but the spirit of the deal never left.......... Look around you. The tailors, the knife shops, the towers of kitchen hardware, the wedding candle sellers. This is not a market dressed up for tourists. This is Istanbul's true commercial engine, five centuries old, and still running at full speed.

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