Finjān (فنجان) in Arabic; plural fanajeen (فناجين) or Anglicized as finjans; is a small handless coffee cup.

Finjan min Falastin is an ongoing project that explores the material culture of coffee and the heritage of traditional coffee cups—finjans (فناجين)—in Bilad al-Sham and Palestine.

Finjans are not just functional drinking vessels, they are carriers of our values and culture. They are the product of a long, shared collective history revolving around coffee and connection, accompanying us through life, in bitter and sweet moments, in weddings and funerals; from the first morning sip to the many rounds poured throughout the day.

As mass-produced imported cups from the West replaced the locally made finjans, the local ones disappeared. Did it ever cross your mind that those small white porcelain cups with handles and saucers—the ones now so common in our homes—are actually a smaller, shrinked version of the English tea ware, transformed to become the container of our Arabic coffee?

Finjan from Palestine traces the material culture and heritage of coffee ware in Bilad al-Sham and Palestine, before foreign objects and practices reshaped the region’s traditions. This specific ceramic finjan was inspired from early 20th-century finjan made in Rashaya al-Fukhar, a village of potters in Jabal el-Sheikh, Southern Lebanon. Until the mid 20th century, it was the heart of Bilad al-Sham’s pottery, with nearly a hundred workshops supplying handcrafted wares to Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan for centuries.

Made with love, from Palestine.