Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Coffee
416
Johann Jacobs Museum
Where Kaffekultur Is King
Zurich, Switzerland
Even if you're not a java junkie, this smart
lakefront museum will eventu-
ally seduce you into shar-
ing its coffee-centric
view of the world.
Every year, a dif-
ferent in-depth
exhibit explores
some aspect of cof-
fee's cultural history—
no matter how arcane
the topic sounds, they'll
manage to make it fas-
cinating.
Open since 1984, the Jacobs Museum
(named after a 19th-c. coffee merchant
from Bremen, Germany) focuses less on
science than on the social dimensions of
coffee—how the coffee trade influenced
global economic develop-
ment; how coffeehouse cul-
ture differed from country to
country, class to class, and
gender to gender; the
complicated rituals asso-
ciated with brewing,
serving, and packaging
coffee; and popular images
of coffee from generation to
generation.
The museum develops
these exhibits from its own
extensive collection of coffee-
related art, literature, and artifacts—which
includes everything from porcelain figurines
to all shapes of silver coffee jugs, illustrated
17th-centry travelogues, and 19th-century
medical treatises on the horrors of imbibing
coffee. The museum's art collection is par-
ticularly comprehensive, with prints and
paintings by a range of artists including Wil-
liam Hogarth, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and
Roy Lichtenstein—all them with some tan-
gential relation to coffee and coffee-drinking.
It's a pity, really, that only a portion is on
public display at any one time.
The setting in itself is worth a visit—a
baroque sandstone villa built in 1913 with
an elegant marble entrance hall and a fine
view over Lake Zürich. The upstairs coffee
room charges for a premium selection of
brews from around the world (Johann
Jacobs's business eventually grew into a
major German coffee importer, now
owned by Phillip Morris), but the down-
stairs bar serves free coffee in a sort of
Internet cafe that also features informa-
tive videos and photo displays.
One of Johann Jacobs' many novelty
coffee vessels.
Seefeldquai 17 (
&
41/44/388 61 51;
www.johann-jacobs-museum.ch).
An illustration from the Johann Jacobs Museum,
devoted to the history of coffee.
