German coffee culture

When it comes to German drinks, we will first think of beer, but we do not realize that coffee is the most popular drink in Germany. According to the survey statistics released by the German Coffee Association in 2010, the per capita coffee consumption in Germany in 2009 was about 150L, exceeding the consumption of beer; in addition, German consumption of one-person coffee bags (Kaffee Pad) and coffee capsules (Kaffee Kapsel) also showed an upward trend, even ten times higher than in 2004. Holger Preibisch, president of the association, believes that small bags of coffee are so popular because it meets consumers' demand for convenience and quality.

Speaking of the German festival, we will never miss the grand Munich Oktoberfest, while the German "coffee festival" is little known. On September 29th, 2006, the German Coffee Association in Hamburg initiated and established the "Coffee Festival" (Tag des Kaffees) and organized a design competition to select the Logo of the Coffee Festival. Teresa Habild, a 26-year-old female college student, won the championship for her simple and elegant design. On the day of the Coffee Festival, rich and colorful activities are held all over the country. For example, the theme of the 2010 Coffee Festival is "Coffee-carefree enjoyment". On this day, coffee merchants displayed their products in Bremen Square, Lubeck held a coffee exhibition, and graffiti of the whole coffee production process were painted on the 300m-long outer wall of R ö stfein in Maderburg.

Coffee also went through a long process before it gradually entered Europe, and coffee became more and more popular in southern and central Europe in the 16th century. The first cafe, bottega del caff è, was born in Venice in 1645. In Venice's Piazza San Marco, the Florian Cafe, which opened in 1720, is still open today. Like other cafes, Florian was then a gathering place for artists and literati, and now it attracts many tourists from all over the world. The first cafes were born in Oxford in 1650 and in London in 1652. Then the first cafes in Marseilles and Paris opened. The first coffee shop in Germany was born in Bremen in 1673, Hamburg in 1677, Regensburg (Bavaria) in 1686, Leipzig in 1694 and Berlin in 1721. The coffee shop appeared in Vienna in 1683, and its development history can best reflect the coffee history of Europe. There were 150 cafes in Vienna in 1819. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the number soared to 600. But Viennese enthusiasm for coffee began to decline in the second half of the 1920s. With the change of consumption habits and the impact of the Espresso bar, many cafes have closed down one after another. On the streets of Vienna today, traditional cafes are still everywhere and are as popular as the Espresso Coffee Bar.

Of course, the coffee culture of different countries has its own characteristics, which is mainly reflected in the way coffee is brewed. Germany's coffee culture bears the brunt of Merita Bentz (Melitta Bentz). She invented the coffee bubble method more than 100 years ago and wrote the history of coffee in Germany.

Born in Dresden in 1873, Melita, a housewife and businessman, likes Sch ä lchen Hee ²en (Saxony dialect for a cup of coffee eine Tasse Kaffee)-freshly brewed coffee, but she hates the coffee grounds left between her teeth. One day she punched many holes in the bottom of the tin can, took out a piece of blotting paper from her son's schoolbag and put it into hot water, and immediately the mellow coffee dripped into the pot through the blotting paper. In this way, she invented a method of filtering dregs and retaining the aroma of mellow coffee. Before this invention, people used material bags to filter coffee. This material is unhygienic after being used many times, and it will destroy the original mellow taste of coffee.

On June 20, 1908, Melita registered her invention with the Royal Patent Office: an iron coffee filter with multiple sloping holes at the bottom of the arch. At that time, Benz set up the Melita Company at his residence with very little money. Unfortunately, the local archives have few records of the life history of the Dresden daughter, who invented the coffee filter. The invention soon became a household name and eventually became a must in German kitchens. In the mid-1920s, the company expanded to accommodate orders for 100000 filters, including ceramic filters, and moved to Mingdeng in 1929. Today, the company is run by the grandson of the founder. Melita has more than 3200 employees in 50 branches around the world and produces about 35 million to 50 million coffee filters every day. The follicle method invented by Melita has hardly been changed so far, but only optimizes the shape of the filter and filter paper. The company also produces all kinds of special filter paper for different flavors of coffee.

It can be said that the Saxons have a feeling of coffee. Bach, a world-famous composer and chief musician of Thomas Church in Leipzig, wrote Coffee Cantata. The elector of Saxony and the king of Poland, the strong Auguste, admired the fine porcelain of brewing coffee and tea, and he set up Europe's first porcelain handicraft factory in Meissen (Dresden). In Leipzig, Coffe Baum, which opened in the early 19th century, is one of the oldest cafes in the world and is still open today. In Saxon, the words "Bliemchengaffe" and "Blu ü mchenkaffee" are used to describe very light drinks. Most of these low-concentration drinks are mixed with too much water, so light that you can see the pattern at the bottom of Meissen porcelain filled with coffee.

Today, 51% of German households own a classic filter paper dripping coffee machine, and 6% of them use Melita-era filters to make mellow coffee by hand. Although filter paper dripping coffee is still dominant in Germany with an 80 per cent advantage, Germans are no longer satisfied with leaking black coffee, floating cappuccino or latte macchiato coffee mixed with milk and espresso has become fashionable, and more and more Germans are willing to buy expensive coffee mills and Espresso coffee makers for their kitchens. In pursuit of quality, instead of buying vacuum-packed coffee beans or coffee powder in the supermarket, they buy plateau coffee (hochland coffee) with a nutty chocolate flavor or buy it from a bakery.