Coffee & Espresso

The assortment spans classic espresso, smooth filter coffee, everyday blends, and coffees with distinctive origin and aroma profiles. It includes beans for fully automatic coffee machines, options for espresso machines, and coffees suited to pour over, French Press, and moka pots. Arabica, Robusta, and balanced blends all play a role here, alongside coffees with chocolate, fruity, nutty, sweet, or roasty notes that help narrow the selection by taste as well as by brewing method.

To understand today's coffee culture, it's worth taking a brief look at the history of coffee:

• Many legends surround the discovery of the effects of coffee beans. What is certain, however, is that the hot beverage most likely originated in Ethiopia, in the region that gave it its name: Kaffa. According to historical sources, coffee was already enjoyed there as early as the 9th century.

• The coffee beans were, and still are, roasted in a large pan, ground in a mortar, then boiled with water and sugar before being served. Coffee from Ethiopia is considered extremely intense and not for the faint-hearted.

• The first commercially cultivated growing regions emerged in Arabia. The city of Mocha, the origin of the distinctive preparation method and the bold bean blend, was for a long time the sole centre of the coffee trade in the known world.

• Coffeehouses became fashionable in the 16th century, first in the Arab world and about a century later in Europe as well.

• The poet Goethe was a great admirer of coffee and proposed distilling the bean and its compounds.

• Coffee was considered a privilege and a sign of respectable middle-class or aristocratic standing. Those who could afford the time and money would meet in the afternoon for coffee and conversation at the local coffeehouse.