The Viennese coffee house is one of the grand institutions of European cultural life. It is the ideal place for reading writing argument, chess playing, and a whole afternoon over a single Melange.
And it has been so for over 350 years. Beginning in 1683, the coffee eventually made its way to Vienna after the Turkish occupation.
Oriental influences arrived in Vienna in the shape of a Polish merchant Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki who liberated the city and was rewarded with the sack of coffee beans abandoned by the Turks fleeing back home.
He opened the first Viennese Coffee House, the Zur Blauen Flasche (The Blue Bottle) and disseminated the delicacy among the Viennese public.
Regardless of the truth of the legend, the coffee houses proliferated through Vienna in the late 17th and 18th centuries, serving as sources of political and intellectual gathering, whether historically true or not.
The Golden Age By the 19 th century the Viennese coffee house was something special - a semi-public salon where writers and artists rubbed shoulders for hours with politicians and philosophers.
Sigmund Freud, Gustav Klimt, Stefan Zweig and Leon Trotsky were just some of the notable visitors to Viennese coffee houses.
By the time Caf Central opened in 1876 it was so identified with the life of the mind that when an Austrian bureaucrat received a warning that Trotsky was planning a revolution, he is said to have sighed 'And who is going to make this revolution?
Perhaps Herr Trotsky from the Caf Central? ' Together with other Viennese cafes, she is a UNESCO monument of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of mankind.
The tradition is still alive, You could still sit for hours reading your paper, with a Melange and a glass of water, and no-one would ask you to leave.
;melangeespresso with a third of steamed milk and a third of foam Kleiner brauner- a small espresso with a splash of cream. Grosser Braunerlarge coffee with some cream on top of it.
Einspnner A shot of espresso served in a glass and covered with whipped cream The top three places are Caf Central, Caf Hawelka, and Caf Landtmann. Sample a selection of Viennese style coffees in Global Coffee Haven.