Vienna rediscovers its coffee culture mojo - it’s not just your average cup of joe

Forget parvenu Starbucks. Vienna’s love of coffee dates as far back as 1683, when Turkish forces retreating from a failed siege left behind a sack of beans, which one well-travelled Austrian aristocrat knew how to prepare. Tradition has it he opened Vienna’s first cafe soon afterwards, and the first written record of a Viennese coffee house dates to just two years later.

Coffee houses sprang up everywhere and by the late 19th century, they’d become meeting places for intellectual debate. Impecunious writers and wannabe revolutionaries alike could treat these large, high-ceilinged spaces as living rooms, buying a single cup of coffee for the right to spend hours undisturbed over the newspapers provided, or discussing their contents.

By the 1950s, however, Vienna’s coffee houses were in decline, challenged first by Italian-style espresso bars and then by bland international chains. In recent times things have perked up.

There’s been a revival of community coffee houses where locals are on cheek-kissing terms with the owners, as well as the arrival of a so-called third wave of cafes, which are as innovative as they are varied.

In their day, the traditional coffee houses, too, were given to innovation. For instance, the poet Peter Altenberg (1859-1919) had not only his mail but also his laundry sent to Cafe Central. Famous but penniless, he frequently paid his bill in literary bons mots hastily scribbled on the backs of napkins, thus pioneering cashless payments.