Winter has begun to make itself truly felt. As the air grows colder, one’s mind turns first to watching the outside world through a window misted with breath; we imagine snow falling slowly under the streetlamps, drifting into the deep silence of the night. And right at the heart of this winter scene, a familiar taste that has accompanied Turkish nights for centuries quietly returns: boza.
Once the quintessential Ottoman “winter drink,” boza has seen an unexpected revival in Türkiye in recent years. It is no longer viewed merely as a nostalgic memory, but as a warm emblem of a rediscovered culture of slowness. Within the Slow Food philosophy, rooted in local, traditional, patiently crafted flavors, boza stands out as one of the most distinctive beverages of Türkiye’s Ottoman heritage. Freshly prepared at home and savored with great pleasure, this humble drink becomes a unique social ritual that gathers friends around it and forms new circles of conversation.
In recent years, not only have boza shops multiplied, but street vendors pushing their traditional boza carts have also returned. Old-style copper ladles have become visible again; the scent of roasted chickpeas drifting through neighborhoods completes the call of the boza seller and small nut shops, an essential companion to the drink, have begun to flourish once more. All these details point to how strongly boza has positioned itself at the center of a cultural revival.
Boza itself is a beverage shaped by transformation: it ferments slowly, thickening at its own pace, never rushed – its timing belongs to itself. And when you add a sprinkle of cinnamon and a few roasted chickpeas – how strange! – It becomes not merely a flavor but a seasonal emotion. With the first sip, one takes winter into the body; with the second, the memory of the street; and with the third, a faint longing for days gone by.
The story of boza is, in many ways, the story of the rhythm of Ottoman cities, the texture of their neighborhoods and the social memory of winter nights. Beginning in the 16th century, the familiar cry echoing through Istanbul’s streets – “Boozaa!” – became one of the most distinctive acoustic signatures of early urban life. As the boza seller walked through the streets at night, he did more than fill cups; he carried with him the stories he gathered along his route. His call stretching from one doorway to another was remembered as one of the most innocent and profoundly human rituals of the city’s nocturnal life.
In the Ottoman era, boza shops – bozahâne – were warm gathering places where the neighborhood came together. People warmed themselves, conversed, checked in on one another and shared the long winter nights. If the coffeehouse was the venue for daytime conversation, the bozahane was the quiet, contemplative pause of winter evenings. Chronicles of the period note that people from all walks of life – from the poorest to the wealthiest – found the same delight in boza, describing it as a kind of social equalizer.
This cultural continuity began to fade with rapid urbanization in the early years of the Republic. The once-familiar call drifting through the streets slowly disappeared; for a time, boza seemed reduced to a nostalgic product confined to supermarket shelves. Yet the revival we see in Türkiye today reveals that this tradition never truly vanished but merely retreated beneath the surface. The copper ladle in the hand of the modern street vendor has once again become a powerful symbol, reminding us that the city’s memory has reached the present along an unbroken line.
Today, the way young people record boza sellers on their phones and share them on social media reveals a striking encounter between tradition and modernity: the city hears a sound again it thought it had lost and its urban memory quietly reopens an old page. And, curiously enough, it is precisely at this moment that boza reconstructs its historical identity – emerging once more as a winter culture that stretches from the sounds of the streets to the light in our homes, from the taste of slowness to the warmth of social closeness.
When considering the meaning of boza in modern Türkiye, it is hard to find a better guide than Mevlüt, the unforgettable character from Orhan Pamuk’s novel "A Strangeness in My Mind." As Pamuk portrays him, Mevlüt walks through Istanbul’s night streets with his copper ladle in hand, selling boza while simultaneously restoring a rhythm that had begun to fade from the city’s collective memory.
In one scene, when Mevlüt is invited to a flat after someone calls out from an upper floor, the moment he steps inside, people greet him with warm smiles. The unexpected joy on the faces of those who have not seen a boza seller in a long time is striking. Mevlüt’s “melancholy” voice seeps into the room and an elderly man telling him, “Your voice touched our hearts,” reveals how boza still carries a striking ability to create human connection in the modern city.
Throughout his life, Mevlüt wanders the streets and encounters thousands of faces, making boza’s social role even more visible. Every day he speaks with different types of customers – families with children, know-it-alls, skeptics, nostalgia seekers and even those who assume “boza” is derived from the English word “booze.” This diversity reflects the wide range of encounters shaped around the drink. And when Mevlüt cheerfully calls out “Boo-zaa!” to some of his customers, it reminds us how an old street sound can still bring a small smile to the modern city.
Pamuk’s Mevlüt stands like the last representative of a fading sense of public life. Amid Istanbul’s accelerating modernization – the transformation of Tarlabaşı, multilane roads cutting through old neighborhoods – Mevlüt’s nightly walk carries a double meaning: On one hand, it reveals the city’s socio-spatial transformation; on the other, it shows that the neighborhood culture embodied by boza has not completely disappeared.
Today, when young people see a boza seller on the street, their first instinct is to record him on their phones – a contemporary echo of Pamuk’s story. When the city hears a sound again that it thought it had lost, it reacts with surprise. And in modern Istanbul, boza regains its meaning as a modest yet powerful gesture that brings people closer together in an age defined by speed.
The renewed visibility of boza in today’s Türkiye cannot be explained by nostalgia alone. Amid the crowded, fast and often exhausting rhythm of urban life, boza offers people not only a moment to pause but also a way to hold on to their roots. For individuals who interact less and less in the rush of daily life, boza – with its warmth, aroma and slow-sipping rhythm – revives something like an “old sense of community.” For this reason, boza today is not just a sweet-and-sour winter drink; it has become a moment of calm, a breath of stillness that modern city dwellers increasingly seek.
Equally important is that a boza seller on the street carries not merely a product but a ritual. Boza is a beverage that refuses to rush; its texture develops slowly, over time – just as genuine conversation cannot be hurried. Another reason for boza’s growing popularity is the erosion of neighborliness and spontaneous encounters in modern cities. As urban centers have expanded, people have drifted apart; apartment living has weakened the everyday contact once created by shared streets and open doorways. For this very reason, boza becomes a kind of “encounter space” in itself.
Today, drinking boza signifies a slowing of both body and mind – an act of gentle resistance in an age ruled by speed, a small cultural gesture that brings people closer again. When all these elements come together, boza transforms into a powerful symbol that has regained its meaning in contemporary Türkiye:
A reminder that tradition, memory, slowness and human warmth still find a place in the heart of winter nights.
The “bozaaa” calls, once again echoing through Türkiye’s streets today, are not merely a doorway to the past; they are also a gentle reminder of the warm human contact modern urban life has nearly forgotten. The thick, heavy cup we hold on winter nights - its cinnamon fragrance and the warmth of roasted chickpeas – quietly brings back a feeling we thought the city had lost: a sense of closeness.
When boza, an old Ottoman drink, returns to the streets of contemporary Türkiye, it reminds us not only of a tradition but of a way of living. And perhaps this is why boza is beloved again today. Because it whispers to us, softly and without insistence:
Life is most beautiful in the moments when we slow down.
And when people gather around a warm cup of boza, they rediscover not the feeling of being “urban,” but the joy of simply being together.
