Our first stop in Bucharest was a small everything-and-anything indoor market in the Piata Gemeni just north of the 500 year old Cartierul Armenesca (Armenian Quarter). Festoons of dried herbs overhung tables of fruit and vegetables. Cheeses, cured meats and familiar soft drinks vied with household cleaning items for the attention of grocery-grazing housewives.

The market’s long central tables are flanked by two aisles lined with semi-enclosed stalls. As we make our way down one of these aisles, dodging teetering trolleys of UHT milk, cola and cauliflowers, a piercing aroma draws us irresistibly towards a tiny shop bearing an imposing name: Sarkis M. Sarkissian.

This story starts with the Turkish Genocide against the Armenians in the early 1900s. Survivors of the Sarkissian and Macighian families, coffee shop proprietors from the old empire, take to the road and arrive in Romania where in 1912, at Ramnicu-Valcea, Bucharest, they set up two shops.

Click the button below for a fascinating if quirkily translated back-story.

Today, Sarkis Cafe still thrives. Its customers are die-hard aficionados of the robust Turko-Armenian style of coffee roasting, grinding and brewing. And, indeed, dispensing. Market stall holders and shoppers alike stop by for a heart-racing shot or two of the Sarkis black nectar. We join them.

Nor is Sarkissian the only vestige of the Armenian coffee tradition in Bucharest. Next stop: the ramshackle hut of 80 something year old Haig Keskerian, on Grigore Manolescu Street. Soon to retire, this grand old man – some say the king – of Armenian coffee purveyors, says he will be passing on his modest business to an old friend. He looks wistful as he surveys his tiny coffee empire.

Keskerian’s modest kiosk is a riot of anomalies: antique grinding and roasting machinery, rusting signs and pulsating neon lights. But the proof of its popularity is the steady stream of customers who demand Haig’s traditional Armenian style grind.

Our final foray into the darkish world of Armenian coffee tradition in Bucharest pitches us into a reunion. Greeted with much bonhomie and shots of fabled Ararat Armenian brandy, we join a table in an alleyway off Strada Radu Cristian at the renowned Delicatese Florescu.

Gheorge Florescu extends his one good arm to welcome us (his other is in a sling from a recent fall) and introduces us to his mentor Avedis Carabelaian who is visiting from his home in New York City. Avedis, a former supplier of coffee to the Royal House of Romania, turned his family business over to his protégé Florescu some years before, and the business has continued to flourish.

It’s easy to see why. After several cups of their rich Armenian coffee chased with nips of Ararat and stories of past exploits, we sadly take our leave, wishing there was a similar establishment in our own neighbourhoods back home.

Sarkissian, Keskerian, Florescu (via Carabelaian); each is keeping an Armenian coffee tradition going in Bucharest that stretches all the way back to its Ottoman Empire origins. The techniques and end result are very much an acquired taste for those not familiar with a Turkish/Armenian style brew. Strong, very strong, gritty but with an inimitable punch and depth of flavour.

Not everybody’s cup, to be sure. Which is why Bucharest – along with its neighbours – is seeing a proliferation of new wave brewsters.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the traditional and the new – or third - wave is where coffee is consumed. When communism swept through the Balkans, socializing over a cup of coffee in a cafe or coffee house dwindled. Particularly in Bulgaria where that legacy can still be witnessed today. If people drank coffee it tended to be in the home.

What seems to be happening now is that socializing over coffee is on the up. And nowhere more so than in Bucharest.  Romania is unquestionably a country of enthusiastic coffee drinkers. Changing a long tradition of coffee consumption has been challenging, but in just a few years, specialty coffee has burst on to the scene all over the country. More and more entrepreneurs are opening speciality shops and introducing high quality beans and coffee-making methods to eager consumers. For now, specialty coffee is a relatively small niche, but all that is beginning to change. As we were to discover at our first third wave cafe.

Origo at Strada Lipscani 9 is credited with being Bucharest’s first specialty café and the place where the city’s growing coffee scene took off. Origo’s head barista Victor told us that the new Third Wave of cafés is all about socialising with the customer and supplying them with a quality cup of coffee.

‘We don’t have waiters, everyone who works here is a certified barista,’ he explained. ‘Third Wave cafes now require more interaction and being a barista isn't just about making good coffee you must be something of a showman as well’.

Sitting outside at a ‘community table’, Victor reiterated what we heard throughout Bulgaria about how Communism all but destroyed the café culture. ‘But here in Romania we are changing all of that, it’s coming back and it will be stronger than it ever was.’

Community also figures strongly at our next stop – Orygyns - which has a curiously similar name to our previous encounter.

This charming little coffee shop just metres from the British Embassy (Strada Jules Michelet 12) prides itself on constantly rotating its coffee supply, so the coffee rarely stays the same. When we visited, they had just had a power cut so were unable to provide any of their extensive range. As it happens, three women were sat at a window table busily trying to choose wedding hats. One, the hat designer, offered her coffee so that we could at least sample one of Orygyn’s  fine brews. It was delicious.

Orygyns’ barista Sînziana Perțea describes how ‘people come in here to learn about coffee, to taste something new, they are really open to learning’. ‘Starbucks coffee is a dessert...it has its place, but we represent the third wave of cafés. We are about building a community and educating our customers’.

‘Tradition for the sake of tradition isn’t right,’ Razvan Crisan says as we settle at our Ikea-like table at the spacious and busy M60 Café he co-founded nearly three years ago. ‘Tradition is important as long as you don’t gamble on value’.

M60 sits comfortably in an up-and-coming area of central Bucharest (Strada D. I. Mendeleev 2), nestled equally between urban neglect and urban renewal. With plenty of electrical sockets and understated, Nordic design office seating, M60 seems to cater to students and remote workers. M60 represents the new age cafés, it’s hip and unpretentious, Razvan doesn’t even bother using a logo, ‘because we want customers to want to find us.’

Try as we might, we couldn’t connect with Cosmin Mihailov, the founder/owner of Bloom Speciality Coffee. In his stead barista Adrian crafted us a smooth and creamy café latte at the tiny bar of this unassuming little venue in Strada George Vraca 7.

When asked what makes Bloom stand out from the other speciality cafés that have sprouted up over Bucharest in the last few years, Adrian responds with PowerPoint-like accuracy, ‘first it’s the where and how the coffee is harvested; then the varietal and finally the process of roasting. And, of course, we grind all our own coffee’. The mostly young clientele filter in and out of the café. There is a large water bowl for dogs and the Wi-Fi is free and fast.

As with Sarajevo, Belgrade and, to a lesser extent, Sofia, we found the coffee culture of Bucharest divided between the traditional and new wave. But without doubt, the new breed of coffee lovers and providers is prevailing.

The siren call (and smell and taste) of coffee venues designed for communing, working, socializing and hedonism is appealing exponentially to primarily a younger audience. But it would be a shame if the traditional were to be totally subsumed, or, as in the case of several venues we visited in Serbia and Bulgaria, consigned to become museums instead of working, thriving houses of coffee and conversation.

'I'm most passionate about new ways to make coffee. The Syphon, Aeropress, Chemex, V60 dripper. . .these methods are now becoming more and more popular in Belgrade.'

'We now have opened 7 shops since 2014. This is the future, but it will take time.'

‘There is no coffee culture in Bulgaria’. So says the somewhat pessimistic co-owner of a café  in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second largest city. Is he right?

On our Balkan Caffeination travels we had already encountered the vibrant cafe and coffee cultures of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia where the fragrant (and potent) black stuff permeates daily life 24/7. You couldn’t throw a coffee bean in any direction in Sarajevo, Belgrade or just about any settlement with more than a few hundred people without hitting a cafe, coffee house or roastery. To a slightly lesser extent the same would be true once we got to Romania.

But Bulgaria? Not so much.

The first worrying thing we noticed was the proliferation of coffee vending machines. They were everywhere. In every village, town and city. Even, would you believe, adjacent to cafes. Actually many were probably owned by cafes.

Our guide had a theory which was to be echoed by other people we met.  Communism, she suggested, probably had a lot to do with it. It’s no secret that Bulgaria suffered a particularly brutal and repressive period under successive People’s Republic of Bulgaria regimes up until the 90s. Culture was strictly regulated.  People were reluctant to meet socially outside of their homes (e.g. in cafes) or, if they did, were chary of what they discussed. So socializing in cafes, a Balkan tradition, atrophied.

To explore what a typical venue of that period was like we visited a communist era coffee house in the Mladost district of Sofia. Whether by design or indifference it was one of the most depressing cafes of our entire Balkan odyssey. And the coffee wasn’t exactly nectar either.

Yes, there are sporadic attempts to keep traditional coffee culture alive in Bulgaria. In some cases these tend to feel more like living museum exhibits, than thriving cafes. But, in the interest of research we tracked a few down.

In Veliko Tarnovo, one of Bulgaria’s oldest cities, in the pedestrianised Samovodska Street, Neli  Boncheva runs a tiny sweets and Turkish coffee shop called The Sugar Shop. In between hordes of teenies coming in to top up their sugar highs, Neli manages to dispense authentic Turkish brews. That said, Samovodska Street is littered with touristy gewgaw shops, and the Sugar Shop inevitably shares this vibe.

Watch the coffee spinning video clip here:

But as good as the coffee is and charming as the host and hostess of Zlatograd’s Old Town Cafe are, you still get the impression of a staged show rather than authentic cafe.

Sand ‘cooked’ coffee also figured in the picture-perfect village of Tryavna.

Like the Veliko Tarnovo venue, кафе на пясък (Coffee on Sand) cafe is as much about sweet stuff – cookies, candies, etc. - as it is coffee. But the coffee was good, our hostess was delightful and the cafe a match for the fairy-tale rusticity of the village.

Had we yet found a thriving coffee culture in Bulgaria? Not even close.

If anywhere should have been able to deliver the full-on coffee experience, it should have been Bulgaria’s capital city. So with high hopes we set off through Sofia’s mixture of monumental Austro-Hungarian and Soviet architecture to suddenly find ourselves descending into a predominantly Roman subterranean complex. And there, amidst a nicely curated clutter of antiquities, sarcophagi, and ancient brick and stone, we found our natural home: the Photojournalists Club of Bulgaria.

The venue looked like a small bomb had just hit it. Empty coffee cups and drinks glasses. A dishevelled drum kit. And a rather hung-over, apologetic, but totally welcoming hostess greeted us. Veselina - sometimes actress, daughter of the cafe owner – explained that there had been an all-nighter to celebrate the launch of a photographer’s work. She struggled to get the coffee machine working. But couldn’t.

So instead she offered us a classic Balkan breakfast (it was morning): a carafe of potent homemade rakia and bread with slices of cucumber and tomato. Which we gratefully accepted!

Next stop, the decidedly un-Bulgarian-named Chucky’s Coffee & Culture. Ivan Chavdarov and Dimo Kolev are in the vanguard of the new wave, claiming to be the first specialty café in Sofia. Chucky’s sells mainly espresso coffees, rarely Turkish via their two shops in Sofia. But they’re finding it hard. Ivan echoed our Plovdiv respondent’s view of no café culture in Bulgaria. Why, we asked? Mainly the politics and communism which discouraged social interaction traditionally in cafes and coffee houses.

Many of Chucky’s Bulgarian younger customers have travelled to other countries so they know about café culture and how good coffee should taste. But the bulk of Sofia’s population has yet to wake up and smell the new coffee and culture.  Nevertheless these guys are forging ahead with their two locations and a lot of optimism. And yes, the name Chucky’s was ‘inspired’ by the film of the same name. Go figure!

Our last attempt to uncover Sofia’s ‘green shoots’ of coffee culture took us to Fabrika Daga, the Rainbow Factory. Fabrika serves up excellent coffee with interesting food.

Good as the food might be, the coffee is why Fabrika is often overflowing with younger customers desperate for a coffee culture scene that, so far, seems to have eluded Sofia. Cafe owner/barista Venelin Dimitrov: “Fabrika has been open for 3 years. People come here for the coffee and social scene".

"People here in Sofia can’t afford a lot of coffee, can’t afford to go to the cafes all the time. So the coffee has to be good. If you don’t serve good coffee your business is doomed.  Also tourism plays an important role. As tourism grows so will we."

On to Bulgaria’s second city, Plovdiv. It was here that we met up with Angel Andreev, the author of the opening quote of this blog: ‘There is no coffee culture in Bulgaria’ – there it was again. Angel also told us: "...this business is for the heart, not for money."

Despite this apparently gloomy prognosis Angel and business partner Garo Uzunyan are determined to make their Biblioteka cafe business thrive and have even set up a modest roasting/grinding operation in a nearby bolt-hole. We wish them all the luck in the world.
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Perhaps, aside from the coffee vending machine epidemic, the most telling encounter we had was in the home of an elderly couple to which we were graciously invited for a cup of coffee. Had this been in Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia, it would have undoubtedly involved the whole ritual of traditional coffee prepared in a djezveh possibly accompanied by a shot of rakia. In fact, they brought in steaming cups of… instant coffee.

This is not meant to be unkind. The couple were both welcoming and delightful. But on reflection it suggested how unimportant coffee culture had become to socializing in Bulgaria. Particularly among the older population.

We can only hope that the new wave of coffee roasters, grinders and purveyors – however few there are at the moment – will eventually win through and revive a centuries old tradition of coffee as a social catalyst and connector. The new Bulgarians are waiting!

Words and (most) images by Fred Shively and Paul Kelly, the Balkan Caffeinators

The three of us, Paul, Saad and Fred and our guide Kristina, were sat in our third cafe of the morning and, consequently were just about to order our third coffee of the morning. ‘Ah, sikterusa’, says Kristina.
‘Sikterusa?’ says Saad. ‘Sikterusa,’ repeats Kristina, ‘shoo coffee. The third cup.’ She had our attention and our Balkan coffee culture education was just about to expand.
As our rich, thick and decidedly potent Serbian coffee arrived, Kristina revealed a coffee custom extended to guests arriving in a Serbian – or Bosnian - home. Invariably you will be offered coffee and the first coffee to arrive is called a docekusa which comes from the verb docekati meaning to welcome.

As your visit continues – assuming it’s a cordial visit – you’ll then be offered a second coffee, the razgovarusa which is derived from the word razgovar, conversation. Finally, comes the coffee which signals that it’s time to go. The sikterusa, the ‘goodbye’ coffee. The ‘shoo’ coffee as Kristina puts it. Nothing personal, just a neat, friendly way to wrap up.

Docekusa, razgovarusa, sikterusa. The three coffee custom. As with so many facets of coffee culture in the Balkans, we found this utterly charming.

Words and images by Fred Shively and Paul Kelly, the Balkan Caffeinators.

Two and a half years ago Maja Gredić lost her job as a marketing executive and knew exactly what she had to do with her life. ‘I had travelled the world for work and always loved the taste of good coffee,’ she explained. ‘In Serbia, I didn’t find coffee that tasted as good as what I discovered on my trips abroad. I believe that the true sign of the quality of your country is found in the quality of your coffee.'

For the good of Serbia, Maja decided to make a difference and opened a small coffee kiosk in Novi Sad designed to be a ‘peaceful and quiet’ place for people to visit. She roasts all of her coffee at home and then grinds and packages the beans at her shop. On the brown paper coffee bags Maja handwrites personal notes like, ‘You are the coffee you drink’ and ‘With a cup of coffee, even a day in Serbia has some chance.’

As do we, Maja. For both your coffee and your country.

There weren’t many ‘grand’ cafes to be found on our Balkan Caffeination odyssey. But the cafe at the Hotel Moskva in Belgrade certainly qualifies.

Historically this imposing building has gone through dramatic iterations starting with a simple single storey house in the early 1900s. Then an inn, the Velika Serbija. Around 1905, the wealthy owners of the inn – who weren’t that interested in inn-keeping - decided that the location was too good an opportunity to ‘squander’. Consequently they approached the successful and cash-rich Rossiya Insurance company of Russia with a view to opening a major branch HQ in Belgrade. As well as developing a luxurious, multi-purpose palatial edifice.

Thus began the design and planning of what was to become in 1908 the Rossiya Palace. Within the palace, in addition to Rossiya’s offices and other firms, they opened a 36 room hotel – the Hotel Moskva. Along with its obligatory fine cafe.

In the spring of 1941, following the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia, the Gestapo moved into the Rossiya Palace,  promptly renamed it the Hotel Velika Serbija and looted its collection of fine paintings, silverware and gold-plated utensils.

Reverting in the post-WWII period to Hotel Moskva and to the Belgrade cultural elite’s favourite place to congregate, the hotel was nationalized under the communist regime.
Drinking coffee while hanging out amongst the cultural elite was an instant seal of approval. Cafe luminaries such as poet Vasko Popa was a regular client for decades. His daily ritual: arrive 3:30 PM, drink coffee until 6 PM.

In 1974, the hotel restaurant added a poslastičarnica (locally customized version of a patisserie) as part of its offering. Among the various cakes introduced on the occasion was Moskva šnit, a fruitcake that quickly became popular and remains one of the hotel's staples. The original Moskva šnit recipe was created by pastry chef Anica Džepina, and later trademarked. Nowadays, the restaurant serves between 200 and 300 pieces of Moskva šnit daily, while some one thousand whole cakes are delivered monthly to home addresses. A sweet reminder of a grand past.

The Hotel Moskva was re-privatized in 2005 and refurbished in 2009.  Today it continues to draw the ‘great and good’ of Belgrade - and the world.

Among the many loyal patrons of today's cafe at the Moskva we met two of the most delightful ladies - Milka (90) and Gigana (82). In their lifetimes they had seen the Moskva through virtually all of its character transformations, borne along on a tide of fragrant coffee.

Our brief visit to the Moskva was a bittersweet experience. On the one hand we appreciated the efforts of the owners to recapture its former glory, its grandness. But, as Milka indicated, something was gone. And in its place, a pastiche.

Nevertheless both its interior cafe area and sidewalk terrace are well worth the price of a cuppa and, of course, a slice of Moskva šnit.

Words and images by Fred Shively and Paul Kelly, the Balkan Caffeinators. With reference to a great Wikipedia piece on the Hotel Moskva history – well worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Moskva,_Belgrade

​ Which set us up nicely for our next stop. If we could find it! There was no problem spotting the actual Pobednik (Victor) monument. 14 metres of Doric marble surmounted by a bronze warrior commemorating Serbia's victories over the Ottomans in the Balkan Wars and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in WWI. But where on earth was the Beogradski Pobednik Kafe? 

​A discreet sign and the disappearance of our guide down some stone steps are clues. We followed and eureka! There, overlooking the mighty Danube is a grassy terrace strewn with tables and umbrellas. And a scattering of customers.

The results were interesting. And private.

Words and images by Fred Shively and Paul Kelly, the Balkan Caffeinators

Dragan Despopović has been the owner of Štirske Véceri for 30 years now. It’s strictly a working man’s, coffee and rakia drinking café/bar. Food isn’t served and women don’t tend to visit. If you order a ‘married coffee’ you’ll get a cup of black coffee with a shot of rakia on the side. Dragan says about 40 % of his customers 'are the marrying type'.

Miloš works with his father behind the bar.

The Golden Beluga - Kafana Zlatna Moruna - Belgrade. A grand name for a modest cafe which wasn't much to look at in the Belgrade of 1912. Or today for that matter.

But it was here that a 17 year old Bosnian student and fellow conspirators met to plot an event that would ultimately spark World War I.
​

Thus began the first 'great' world war. More about Gavrilo Princip here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip   #balkancaffeination #Serbia #Belgrade #Bosnia_and_Herzegovina #Sarajevo 

​Words and images by Fred Shively and Paul Kelly, the Balkan Caffeinators

We are at the tiny ‘mala kafana’ (small cafe) Djulistan, a mini-bastion of authentic Bosnian coffee culture. Selma is not sure how many of the little cups of potent Bosnian brew she dispenses daily in the ancient Bascarsija heart of old Sarajevo. A lot, she says and then reveals that she herself will drink 3 to 4 cups.​

​Nedim is off coffee today. He’s not feeling well he says lighting up another cigarette without a trace of irony.

​As we move back outside to get a shot of Nedim and Selma in front of their cafe, somebody accidentally nudges a tray resulting in a trail of spilled coffee. Ah, says Selma, if you spill coffee on a table and the spill comes to you, you will marry an attractive partner. As Paul and Fred are both already married to attractive partners (Saad had not yet joined our expedition), the spill remains just a spill.