If you are heading into Poland and fancy yourself a coffee
connoisseur (or a devoted coffee lover), you could not have chosen a better
time. After years of limited options and low quality standards, the country’s
expanding coffee-café sector and maturing java-jonesing population is
cultivating a new crop of sophisticated coffee emporiums. Today, Poland’s
coffee culture is bubbling like the head of a fresh made latté macchiato.

by Anna J. Kutor

Whether you’re wandering the lanes of Warsaw’s striking Old Town or walking through the
narrow, medieval cobbled streets of Kraków, Wrocław, Toruń or Gdańsk, you
can't fail to notice the coffee shops that seem to lurk on every corner. There
are thousands of them, ranging from the relaxed couch-style bohemian to the
elegant, classic coffee houses that serve an extensive range of caffeinated
pick-me-ups. And with a growing variety of brown brews that cater to every
possible taste, style and budget, coffee is increasingly becoming a lifestyle
statement in this traditionally tea-drinking country.

Grounded in History

Poland’s love affair with the intoxicating brew began in 1683, after the Battle of
Vienna, when the defeated Turkish troupes abandoned their massive supply of
aromatic beans. Polish King Jan III Sobieski, leader of the Polish-Habsburg
army at the time, gave the captured stock of aromatic beans as a gift to his
military officer Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki, who promptly began experimenting
with beans and opened, in the same year, the first coffee house in Vienna. In
the beginning, this revolutionary institution only served black coffee, but
after a short period of innovative experimentation, the sugar-and-milk Viennese
coffee tradition was born, along with its moon-shaped sidekick, the croissant.
From there, coffee cultivation and coffee house culture rapidly spread throughout
Europe, profoundly changing the social pattern of the affected countries.

Starting in the mid-18th century, Poland also proved a fertile home for a flourishing
coffee house culture. According to Jan Adamcyewski’s guidebook to Kraków, Kraków
from A to Z, the first café was launched in the city’s Rynek (Old Town
Square) in 1770. This popular spot became known for its special house brew, the
so-called ‘Coffee the Polish Way’ that combined a strong cup of coffee with a
heavy milk skin floating on the top. Despite this, it was only when cafés
started serving a large array of sweets (and alcoholic beverages) that they
became really popular with the Polish masses.

By the dawn of the twentieth century, the coffee house was deeply embedded in Europe's cultural psyche as a place synonymous
with ‘sanctuary’: a center of social interaction where writers, poets, artists
and politicians gathered to read, observe the world, exchange ideas and
philosophies or plot rebellious acts. In Poland, the heyday of coffee houses –
between 1860 and 1914 – saw the establishment of many legendary cafés,
including Warsaw’s Blikle Cafe in 1969 and Kraków’s two most famous cafés,
Reman Café in 1879 and Jama Michalika in 1895. Many famous authors, scientists,
and politicians of the period such as Stanisław Wyspiański, Jacek Malczewski,
Kazimierz Wierzyński, Julian Tuwim, Franciszek Fiszer and Tadeusza Gronowski
used “their” cafés as a home-away-from-home, to talk, create and plot
revolution. But these heady days would soon come to an end – putting Polish
freedom and art at grave risk.

The Soviet Substitute

The Soviet Communist dictatorship from 1952 to 1989 saw the slow destruction of the
popular coffee house culture in Poland, the so-called ‘coffee house death’.
Leaders of the Communist People's Republic of Poland considered coffee houses
to be headquarters of illegal underground communication. They believed -
probably rightly – that Polish free-thinkers and revolutionaries gathered in cafés
and had conspiratorial meetings about overthrowing the communist regime, and so
the majority of cafés around Poland were first heavily guarded and then forced
to close. This reached its peak in the early 1950s, as the Communist government
focused more and more resources on stifling free speech and anti-government
movements.

Another problem faced by cafés was a great amount of market confusion under Communism, as incomes dwindled and goods were in constant short supply. The first things
hit hard by the shortages were Western goods, considered ‘immoral’ by the
Communist regime, so international coffee beans and products were harder and
harder to come by. As a replacement for the ‘dangerous’ capitalist coffee, the
People’s Poland’s began producing Inka, an ‘instant coffee substitute’ made not
from even one ounce of coffee beans, but from the roasting of rye, beets,
barley and chicory roots. For the next 40 years, Inka’s bittersweet brew kept
bubbling away in huge containers, served in chipped coffee cups everywhere from
school canteens to workplace eateries (the so-called ‘milk bars’).
Coffee-lovers were in despair, and it was under Communism that tea became the
country’s drink of choice: unlike Inka, it was cheap, easy to come by and could
be improved by adding some home-grown herbs and spices.

It wasn’t until the demise of Communism in 1989 that the Polish tradition of classic
coffee house culture started piecing together its long-lost pieces. The few
surviving venerable places regained private ownership from government control,
and a number of new gourmet coffee chains started sprouting up across the
national landscape, reaping the rewards of a fast-expanding coffee market. As a
daily staple of contemporary life, café culture has now taken a firm grip on
Polish cities, offering a medley of places to score a gourmet cup of coffee,
from a half-decaf, non-fat grande macchiato with a dash of cardamom to a triple
Italian-style espresso and even an organic, Fair-trade cappuccino.

Bean Battle

While Poles have long been imbibing the bitter brew, the Western-style ‘on-the-go’ coffee
craze only started to gain momentum in the mid-1990s. UK-owned CoffeeHeaven
International was the first branded coffee chain to penetrate the Polish
market. Today, the company has over 48 outlets and is in all the major Polish
cities, making it the largest café chain in the country. Other popular
corporate coffeehouse chains on the market include the Swiss Nestlé-owned
Nescafe, the German Tchibo, and Scandinavian Wayne's Coffee, in addition to
the home-grown Mercer's Coffee, Daily Café and Green Coffee franchises, just
to name a few. The aromatic competition is heating up with brand-new players
like the British Costa Coffee and the American mega-brand Starbucks. In
addition to the already existing herd of existing cookie-cutter coffee outlets,
market research shows that there are over 100 new cafés coming out year on
year.

The reason for Poland’s modern café boom are multi-fold. First, Poland’s
overall economic growth has lead to a increase in disposable incomes all all
spectrum of the social strata. Secondly, the desire by Poles to embrace all
things Western - including the no-frill, always-consistent cup of coffee to go
– has fueled the surge in out-of-home coffee consumption. As a result, the
Polish coffee market is steadily increasing at an average annual rate of 4.3%,
according to research and market statistics.

Cultural Java Jolt

There’s a lot more to a captivating and unique café then just a freshly brewed cup of
java. It’s all about the sights, the smells, the sounds, the ambiance and the
emotions that come with the coffee experience. And while some of these
essential elements can be attained at corporate cookie-cutter café chains, it’s
the smaller, independent Polish coffeehouses that really deliver a perfect
harmony of sensory pleasures. In Warsaw, and several other cities around
Poland, it’s the spread and growing popularity of a new breed of coffeehouses,
the bookstore/cafés combos that has catapulted the coffee culture to a whole
new level. Though a long-standing fixture on the British and North American
markets, the combination of hot java and books in…well…novel in Poland.

“The initial idea was simple: create a bookstore with a friendly, open atmosphere
where people could meet, discuss ideas and enjoy a cup of coffee in the
process,” says Tomasz Brzozowski, founder of Czuły Barbarzyńca (The Tender
Barbarian), Warsaw’s first café-bookstore. Coming alive with the aromas and
commerce of culture in 2002, this establishment (named after Czech author
Bohumil Hrabal’s notorious novel) became an instant crowd-pleasing meeting
point, a feel-good cultural institution that set the trend for the rest of the
town.

Stationed near the grand Warsaw University Library and the sleek suspension structure of
Swietokrzyska Bridge, the Barbarian’s entrance is marked by a curvy red neon
sign. Inside, a balmy bookish feel dominates the split-level space that
features wall-to-wall stacks and shelves of mostly Polish literature, fiction,
poetry and essay of which most were printed by the owner’s publishing house,
Świat Literacki. They also carry a few English-language titles, mostly from the
design-art-focused Taschen volumes. Apart from the books, Brzozowski envisioned
his enterprise as a “stress-free social place”, where people of all ages and
walks of life can come together, unwind and undergo artistic activity. In
keeping with that spirit, the place has hosted a broad spectrum of events,
including regular literary readings, exhibitions, meetings and discussions with
artists and celebrities, film screenings and literature-centered children
activities on weekends. By fusing a comfortable aura of sociability with
dynamism and inspiration, in addition to nurturing creative expression, The
Tender Barbarian has been embraced by the movers and shakers, the bohemians,
the traditionalists and the mavericks as well.

Taste of Roasts to Come

The continuing evolution and expansion of Polish consumer palettes is leading the
way to exciting, new coffee horizons. Viewing coffee as more than just a hot
beverage, serious coffee lovers are seeking to enrich their coffee moments by
trying better, lesser-known coffee blends with distinct aromas. Specialty
coffee shops such as Cafe Bar Bla-Bla in central Warsaw feature hundreds of
premium blends and flavoured coffee creations, dozens of different traditional
ethnic recipes and stock gourmet beans from the farthest regions and countries
of earth.

The latest manifestation of this specialty coffee fad is fair-trade coffee. In
2007, Warsaw welcomed its first ‘ethically-correct’ fair-trade café, The
Barista Espresso Bar & Bakery, situated in the cities ’ newest shopping
mall, Złote Tarasy. Decked out with layered terracotta, earth-toned couches
encircling a cozy fireplace, this place offers an assortment of delicious baked
goodies – including Warsaw’s first baked-on-the-premises brownies and chocolate
cake - and an assortment of creamy coffee concoctions, with a feel-good factor
to boot. Championing ethical environmental practices, fair wages and equal
human rights and a different way of trading coffee, The Barista adds variety to
the java experience by spearheading into an untapped niche on the local market
and paving the way for a new, more organic coffee revolution throughout Poland.

Anna J. Kutor | Content Creator & Strategist

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