Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Noble Bean Reaches Europe
The Dutch were probably the first to smuggle the coffee bean into Europe - in 1616, when
they illegally carried back cultivable beans to Holland and began raising the plants in
greenhouses. From Europe the coffee bean spread to the United States, where it was men-
tioned for the first time in 1668.
Back in Vienna in 1683, the Ottoman Turks were conducting their second great on-
slaught, the Second Turkish Siege, to wrest control of the Occident. The seige saw the
Turkish general and grand vizier Kara Mustafa along with his eunuchs, concubines and
25,000 tents, huddle on the fringe of fortified central Vienna in the
Vorstadt
(inner sub-
urbs; places like Josefstadt and Alsergrund today).
According to legend, a certain Georg Franz Koltschitzky dressed himself up as a Turk
and brought a message behind Turkish lines from the field Marshal Karl I of Lothringen
and was rewarded for his efforts with some war booty that included sacks of coffee beans.
Legend also says that our clever Koltschitzky sniffed the beans and saw his chance to es-
tablish Vienna's first
Kaffeehaus
. Koltschitzky is also said to have been the first person to
mix milk and sugar into the exotic elixir.
True connoisseurs of coffee history scorn this version and raise their hats to a spy by the
name of Deodato, who because of his Armenian background was the perfect man to open
up a
Kaffeehaus
with the sanction of the Habsburg monarchy. He did this in Vienna's cent-
ral district at what today is Rotenturmstrasse 14. We will probably never know the truth
about who did what, but we do know that
Kaffeehäuser
soon flourished in Vienna, and
here coffee was served with a glass of water.
Kaffeehäuser
in the 17th century also had a
billiard table, but playing cards in them wasn't allowed until the late 18th century.
Gradually, newspapers were introduced, and from the late 18th century the
Konzertcafe
(concert cafe) took hold - places where music was played. This cast the humble
Kaffee-
haus
into a new role of being a place where the likes of Mozart, Beethoven and later Jo-
hann Strauss (the elder) could try out their works in the equivalent of open-stage or 'un-
plugged' performances.
When Austria adopted Napoleon's trade embargo against Britain in 1813 it lost almost
its entire source of imported coffee beans. Although alternatives like chicory, rye and bar-
ley were tried, in the end the
Kaffeehäuser
started serving food and wine, which is why
today you can still get a light meal or a drink in a traditional
Kaffeehaus
.
