Common sense of Coffee Culture in Serbia

In Europe and the United States, people have listed coffee as a part of their daily life, and they are used to making a cup of coffee in the morning to start the day. As a western drinking culture, coffee has a long historical background just like Chinese tea culture.

Coffee has become a worldwide drink, with different favorite ways and blending methods in different countries and regions. The famous German composer Bach praised coffee and wrote in his "Coffee chorus": this black drink is better than hundreds of sweet kisses and more subtle than Muscat. Lesheng Beethoven's peculiar and stringent requirements for making coffee have not been understood so far. He requires that 60 beans must be milled for every cup of coffee, neither more nor less. Serbs not only like to drink coffee, but also often chat in small groups in cafes, using the cafe as a place to meet and socialize. I heard that there is a coffee museum with the theme of "Coffee Road" in the small town of West Manofzi on the outskirts of Belgrade. Not long ago, the reporter made an appointment with curiosity to visit the "coffee museum" with strong fragrance.

Half an hour's drive from Belgrade, we came to the famous Dunpai coffee processing factory, while the Coffee Museum was "hidden" in the factory compound. Oliverayokic, the general manager of the company, told us that the Coffee Museum, called Coffee Road, was established in 2005 to promote the "Dunpai" coffee processing plant in Serbia. At the same time, it is also a window to show the coffee culture of Serbia.

According to the arrangement of the general manager, we first taste all kinds of coffee in the mini-cafe of the Coffee Museum. Most people will choose "Domarkey", that is, traditional Serbian coffee or "Turkish" brewed coffee, or "Italian concentrate". After tasting the coffee, the general manager showed us the exhibition hall of coffee processing equipment. There, we saw hand-held copper coffee grinding tools used by early Serbian families and motorized grinding machines in the middle of the last century. Velayokic, the general manager, pointed to one of the machines and said that the machine made use of the Chinese stone mill principle, and the inside of the machine was actually a stone mill, which was very easy to use until the Dunpai coffee processing plant was completed.

The word "Don" of "Dunpai" coffee means "sir" in Italian. If translated literally, it should be "sir" coffee. It is one of the best selling brands in Serbian supermarkets. For a long time, we thought that this coffee with a unique strong flavor was imported from an European country. In fact, it is a state-owned brand created by Serbia, which has enjoyed a reputation throughout the Balkans since the time of Yugoslavia. At present, this modern factory, which covers an area of 33000 square meters, is an electronically controlled closed one-stop operation from roasting, grinding to packaging of coffee beans, which more perfectly retains the "original flavor" of coffee. The daily output of "Dunpai" coffee processing plant is 40 tons, of which 12 tons are instant coffee. It is the largest "London coffee" processing base in Southeast Europe, and the raw materials used for processing are mainly from Brazil, India, Colombia, Guatemala and other countries in the world. At present, the products of the factory are only for domestic demand and are not exported.

In fact, Serbia has a "Glen" coffee processing plant that is bigger than Dunpai coffee, Mr. Velayokic said. With the coffee culture becoming more and more popular, the global demand for coffee beans is rising. It has been estimated that coffee beans are likely to become the primary raw material second only to oil in the global raw material trade. Finally, he added that once coffee culture becomes popular in a big country like China, the world coffee bean market will become popular, such as the coffee growing industry can not keep up, and coffee beans may be as expensive as gold.