What is Vienna coffee and did it really originate from Vienna?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “what is a vienna coffee“
What is Vienna coffee and did it really originate from Vienna?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “what is a vienna coffee“
Yes, it did.
Legend has it that coffee was introduced to Vienna when the Turkish siege of 1683 ended with the defeat of the Turks. A Polish officer named Georg Franz Kolschitzky was handed some sacks filled with strange beans considered worthless (apparently, Kolschitzky had been in Ottoman captivity for some time and knew that these were coffee beans and what to do with them), and he subsequently opened the first coffee house in Vienna.
In reality, the first Viennese coffee house was opened by Johannes Diodato, an Armenian, in 1685, and the locals were hooked on the brew since then.
The heyday of the coffee house Vienna style was in the 19th century, as many writers, poets, politicians, and other famous persons made the coffee house their 2nd home. It was usual to order a single cup of coffee with a glass of water, then sit there for hours reading the newspapers, playing cards, smoking, discussing with friends (and foes alike) and still retain that very first cup of coffee (and several glasses of water for free).
There is no single “Vienna coffee”, but several dozen different variations, and originally they were all filtered (not done quickly by an espresso machine). Depending on how much milk (if at all) was added, the color ranged from black to almost white, and some of the most popular variations are:
Kleiner / großer Schwarzer: Small / large mokka (no milk)
Kleiner / großer Brauner: Small / large mokka plus milk
Verlängerter: lit. “lengthened”, i.e. a mokka plus water plus milk
Melange: Half mokka, half milk
Franziskaner: Melange plus whipped cream and foamed milk
Kapuziner: Kleiner Schwarzer plus whipped cream
Einspänner: Großer Schwarzer plus whipped cream
Kaffee verkehrt: lit. “inverted coffee”, i.e. 2 parts milk, 1 part coffee
This very unique, unparalleled culture was shattered by the two world wars, and from the 1950s on, a slow but steady demise of the Vienna coffee houses took place. Filter coffee was often replaced by Espresso, variations trimmed to the bone, and in the last decade smoke-free zones were introduced that literally took away a lot of the remaining atmosphere.
Today, most of the remaining, prominent coffee houses in the inner city are actually first-rate tourist traps living off a distant fin-de-ciecle sentiment.
And no: Starbucks may brew a coffee-like substance, but they are definitely no coffee house. ‘nuff said.