Kaffee, since 1618

Vienna, Austria

The Viennese Coffee House is so enshrined in world culture, it is listed as an “Intangible Cultural Heritage” by UNESCO.

Suffering from serious jetlag, and with only one eye each fully open, Bear and I made our first stop in Vienna at one of its famous coffeehouses – Zum Schwarzen Kameel.

You cannot simply order “coffee” in Vienna, you must be precise and request one of these, or some café-specific variation.

Kleiner Schwarzer

Einspänner

Wiener Melange

Ordering “coffee” will get you sneered at, and possibly directed to a Starbucks, somewhere back in America.

Vienna’s coffee culture started early in the 17th century. According to legend, an invading Ottoman-Turkish army was repelled at the gates of the city. In their hurry to escape, the Turks abandoned several bags of coffee to lighten their load. An enterprising Wiener, Georg Franz Kolschitzky, salvaged the beans, roasted them, and opened Vienna’s first coffee shop.

Statue erected on Kolschitzkygasse; a Vienna street named after the city’s first coffee merchant.

The new drink became instantly popular and coffee houses began popping up throughout the city. Coffee establishments competed with one another by offering a welcoming environment and supplemental services like newspapers, relaxed seating, and pastries.

Viennese coffeehouses became so popular that by the end of the 19^th century they occupied prominent locations on every major street in the city. The fashionable establishments were frequented by Vienna’s elite, and visitors from around the world, as they are today.

Each coffeehouse tended to attract clientele from specific fields of human endeavour.

Musicians flocked to Café Frauenhuber, where Mozart and Beethoven played table music.

Today, Café Frauenhuber is an upscale restaurant catering to clientele with a taste for fine coffee, goose liver and Tafelspitz – “boiled rump with Bernese roasted potatoes and horseradish sauce”.

Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky and Josip Broz Tito frequented Café Goldegg. Originally a coffeehouse providing services to railway employees, Café Goldegg became a think-tank for revolutionaries, socialists and Nazis.

Writers and journalists lingered at many of Vienna’s coffeehouses. There are depressions in the seats at Café Ritter, and Café Central, where the likes of Leon Trotsky, Stephan Zweig, Peter Altenberg, and Karl Kraus, composed poetry and wrote German language news articles.

Café Sacher has hosted notable guests from Emperor Franz Joseph I, to John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Scientists also flocked to Vienna’s coffeehouses. Café Landtmaan, Café Imperial, and Café Central all advertise that they were Sigmund Freud’s preferred coffeeshop.

Bear and I stopped by Vienna’s oldest coffeehouse to rest and regain our senses. If Zum Schwarzen Kameel can’t help us, nobody can. The Black Camel has been serving …

… Kaffee, since 1618.