Wilhelm Droste
The Importance of Taking Coffee
Coffee-houses in the Dual Monarchy
It occurs to me that I can't remember your face in any precise detail. Only how you walked away between the tables of the coffee-house, your figure, your dress, these I can still see.
Franz Kafka in his second letter to Milena Jesenska in April 1920.
The coffee-house is the most attractive relic of the Dual Monarchy. Not only has it survived into modern times, but in some places it has remained the embodiment of usefulness and convenience. The bizarre Habsburg Empire has left behind it no more delightful impression of its amiable and human side than this. The word "coffee-house" would not have such evocative resonance were it not for the fact that it achieved its greatest significance in the last phase of Habsburg rule, after the dynasty had embarked on the uncertain project of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The coffee-house seemed to be (and indeed may have been) the living demonstration of an ideal, namely that people of quite different status and class, race and sex, political persuasion and nationality, could enjoy convivial intercourse under one roof, without thereby opening the floodgates to civil war and mutual destruction. It seemed as if, within its hallowed portals, everything could co-exist that outside on the streets (or indeed on countless battlefields) led only to hatred and murder.
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In the pioneering days of the European coffee-house, newspapers were not only read there, but also written, edited and composed. This was how the Enlightenment sprang to life in England. It was only natural that a place in which both the latest news and the latest thinking were concentrated also became the fons et origo of new writing and ideas. Such places were in the happy position of being not only the passive conduits of the latest intellectual fashions, but also of providing a convenient forum where novel propositions could immediately be discussed and analysed. Friend and foe alike benefited from the stimulating discussions, and a new truth would emerge from the ebb and flow of debate, a truth that the newspapers had not yet reported. In England, this process went so far that academic coffee-houses arose, within whose portals the quality of thought and disputation was often deeper and more challenging than in the universities. Unfortunately such places, for all their remarkable qualities, soon degenerated into clubmen's bastions, effectively closed to the public, their intellectual brilliance meanwhile fading into a fog of self-satisfied tedium.
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* The "large black" is a double portion of the "small black" mentioned above. The small black is served in an Espresso cup, the large in a bigger one which nevertheless is only half filled, so that the coffee retains its concentrated strength and is not drowned in the water. The cups (known in Austria as "Schalen") are made from sturdy porcelain and warmed on top of the coffee machine, since the coffee must, without fail, be served piping hot.
The Drechsler on Budapest's Andrássy út, 1890s.
Photo by György Klösz. Budapest Museum. |
* If you want the cup filled up, you must order a "Verlängerten". This type of coffee is still stronger than a German or American one, as well as being fresher and hotter, because each cup is made individually.
* The "Mélange" is a northern sister of the cappuccino, a black, slightly diluted coffee with frothy milk. The coffee is not quite as highly roasted as the Italian version and the frothy head lacks the sprinkling of chocolate that has become de rigueur for the cappuccino.
* The "Kleine Braune" and the "Grosse Braune" are variants of the "Schwarzen", with added milk or (better) with cream. In many places it is possible to specify the exact mixture and colouring from light to dark when ordering.
* The "Einspänner" is a strong coffee in a glass with whipped cream on top, the cream being known as "Schlagobers" in Austria.
* Iced coffee "Eiskaffee" is based on quality vanilla ice-cream over which strong ice-cold coffee is poured, with "Schlagobers" on top.
These are the most important variants. Many coffee-houses offer a number of others, for example real Turkish coffee, extremely sweet and several times boiled in a little copper can. There is also genuine Espresso and Cappuccino, so that Italians should not feel obliged to subject themselves to North Tyrolean experiments in taste, and for the cherished guest from North Flensburg, there is also filter coffee.
Definitely Austrian, however, is the ritual that accompanies the serving of coffee. No coffee enters the world without an initial journey on a little square tray sitting next to a diminutive glass of water, the significance of which has always given rise to theological dispute. All that is certain is that this glass provides a resting place for the coffee spoon, which must be lying against the edge of it when the coffee is served. Whether it is advisable to drink the water before the coffee, in order to prepare the palate and the stomach for the great experience to come, or to drink it afterwards, to soothe the passage of the pleasurable coffee; or whether its true function is simply to legitimise the presence of a guest who has drunk a single coffee in the morning and is thereby entitled to occupy his table without let or hindrance until the shadows lengthen and the evening falls, ever and anon consuming newly filled glasses of water courtesy of the management (and without being subjected, even by mien and body language, to anything so insensitive as a hint that it might be time to order something else): all this remains part of the secret code implied by the glass of water, and will so remain until the end of time. All that one can say is that it is part and parcel of the unmistakable ritual of the coffee-house.
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Translated by Nicholas T. Parsons
Wilhelm Droste
teaches German Literature at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and translates Hungarian fiction into German. He is co-author and editor of Ungarn, a collection of essays and editor of Budapest: Eine Anthologie, to be published by Insel in 1997.
