A modern update to one of Turkey's most recognizable tea makers — and a foldable-handle Turkish coffee machine innovation that the category adopted after.
Arzum's Ehli Keyf tea maker had been one of their strongest-selling products for years — highly recognizable, visually consistent, and deeply embedded in how their customers understood the brand. When Arzum decided it was time for a refresh, the brief was precise: update it, but don't lose what made it recognizable in the first place.
The project was developed in collaboration with Stimulo, the international design studio also behind Arzum's Okka series. Once the tea maker was complete, the series needed a companion: a metal-bodied Turkish coffee machine designed to match the tea maker's form language. That second product brought its own innovation — a foldable handle on the cezve, which later became widely adopted across the category.
Updating a product with strong visual recognition is a different challenge than designing one from scratch. The existing Ehli Keyf had a clear identity: soft forms, a silhouette that recalled classic Turkish tea makers, an overall warmth that customers had built a relationship with. None of that could be discarded — it had to be carried forward.
The update focused where it needed to: the handles and connection details were modernized, while the body itself remained untouched. The design DNA stayed intact; the execution was refined. The Turkish coffee machine that followed applied the same logic — form continuity first, innovation where it genuinely added value.
Updating a beloved product isn't about changing it. It's about knowing exactly what not to touch.
Idea
Ehli Keyf's visual recognition was the product's greatest asset — and the brief's primary constraint. The idea wasn't to replace what customers recognized, but to modernize the details that time had made feel dated, while keeping the overall silhouette and character completely intact.
For the Turkish coffee machine, the brief shifted slightly: matching the tea maker's form language while introducing a meaningful functional improvement — a cezve handle that folds flat for storage and transport.
Form
The tea maker's body was left unchanged — its soft forms and classic silhouette remained exactly as customers recognized them. Modernization happened in the details: handles were updated, connection points refined, the product brought up to date without announcing the update.
The Turkish coffee machine was designed to read as a natural companion to the tea maker — same design DNA, metal body, same soft form language — completing the series visually and functionally.
Function
The tea maker carried forward all the functions its loyal customer base expected — no disruption to what worked, only improvement to what had started to feel dated.
The cezve's foldable handle was the series' genuine functional innovation: folding flat when not in use, the handle significantly reduces the space the machine takes up during storage and transport. A simple mechanism that solved a real daily problem — and one that the broader Turkish coffee machine category went on to adopt widely.
Differentiation
Most product refreshes either change too much — breaking the connection with existing customers — or too little, failing to justify the update. Ehli Keyf's refresh found the right position: recognizable to those who already knew it, visibly improved to anyone looking closely.
The foldable cezve handle is the detail that moved beyond the series itself: what started as a design decision for one product became a feature repeated across the category.
Impact
The Ehli Keyf series is still in production, still selling across multiple color variants. The foldable handle innovation introduced in the Turkish coffee machine has since appeared in many other products across the category — a design decision that outlasted the product it was designed for.
Working alongside Stimulo brought an international perspective into the process — understanding how a studio with a different background approached a product deeply embedded in Turkish kitchen culture added a dimension the project benefited from. The collaboration was genuine: both sides shaped the outcome.
The hardest discipline in this project was restraint. Knowing where not to design — leaving the body untouched, trusting that the existing silhouette was the right one — required more confidence than redesigning would have. The foldable handle on the cezve was the opposite challenge: a small mechanism that had to feel obvious in use, even though nothing like it had existed in the category before.
A series still on shelves, still selling in multiple colors, and a cezve innovation that the category adopted long after. Ehli Keyf proved that the most durable updates are the ones customers don't quite notice — until they do, and realize everything feels exactly right.