Coffee culture in Croatia

Note: I originally posted this on Reddit's /r/Coffee. This is an edited and expanded version.

Coffee culture in Croatia would be considered rather strange by others who are not from the region. We have a mix of Italian espresso culture (specially strong on the coast), Austrian coffeehouse culture (visible in how our caffes are organized), and Turkish coffee culture (especially at home).

First of all, we have no coffee chains to speak off - the only one being McCafé, and it survives only because it's attached to McDonald's. No Starbucks. We had Costa Coffee, but it failed after a few years.

But we have an independant coffee shop on every corner. In a five-minute circle around my workplace, there's around 30 of them. No food is served there, but alcohol usually is. Similar to Italy, you can get an espresso, macchiato (small and large, with the small one being in an espresso cup), cappuccino, and "white coffee" which has much more milk. Cups are typically small, usually 1 dL or smaller. Unlike in Italy, we tend to drink our coffee very slowly (20 min - 1 h or more) and socially... we drink it with water on side (usually comes free), and usually with friends. "Let's go out for a coffee" is a typical way of saying "let's hang out and talk".

Coffee quality in a cafe can vary from awesome to horrible, depending on skilled barristas/waiters (they're typically one and the same). Some place great emphasis on the quality of their coffee, but others place way more emphasis on just being a popular place to hang out, and people still drink their coffee just because the place is trendy, well decorated or because that's where their friends go to.

There is a small artisan coffee scene, limited to a few coffee shops. Americans usually call it "third wave", but that doesn't really apply to Croatia since our coffee history is very differnt from American first and second waves as they're described. Around here, it has no official name but it's sometimes described as "new wave" or as "those who actually know stuff about proper coffee".

Take-out coffee is rare, and you usually won't find it in cafes but in bakeries or kiosks. It's rarely good, and sometimes it's instant stuff. But sometimes you can get surprized by a well-maintained Lavazza superauto that actually makes better coffee than you'll get in some of the posh cafes.

The most popular local pre-ground blend

At home, the most popular coffee is Turkish. Stores are full of pre-ground Turkish coffee - apart from instant, it's the only one which you're guaranteed to find in any store. To most people over here, the producer is more important than bean origin, and they're usually arabica/robusta mixes, dark roasts. Minas taste is very popular - that's not usually considered quality coffee, but people around here like it because it's cheap and it's what they were getting used to for the past half century or more.

The turkish coffee pot is called "džezva" around this parts (pronounced similar to Turkish word for it - "cezve"). Very few of them are fancy, tiny copper ones - most of them are larger, cheaper and more practical stainless or enameled steel ones. In a pinch (or when cooking for a large number of people, or when camping), we can also make a coffee in a large pot. This is how we usually prepare it:

• pour water
• add sugar per taste (since it can be sweetened after, if you're cooking for multiple people you always sweeten it according to the tastes of person who wants least sweet coffee - or no sugar at all, if someone prefers unsweetened)
• add a single heaping teaspoon of coffee for every cup
• put on stove and wait... don't take your eyes off it, because it will pick the moment you do to boil over :)
• when the coffee "raises" take it off and wait a minute before pouring into cups
• add any additional sugar or milk to taste (some consider milk to be sacrilege in a Turkish coffee)

I prepare it a bit differently though, I use electrical kettle to bring the water to boil. Much faster results :) Although, it's probably not best to do it that way if you have decent coffee. Then stick to the instructions.

Filter coffee (drip) is very rare. Manual stuff was never known. Machines were sort of popular back in 80's and 90's as a status symbol, but nowadays it's very rare. The novelty of drip machines wore off, filters were an extra cost and people weren't usually fans of the filter coffee taste which was often burned, badly extracted and from the bad coffee in the first place. Still, a small selection of machines are often sold, as well as a few preground coffee brands.

Instant coffee rose in popularity in the 2000s and captured a large part of the market - especially former Turkish or filter drinkers. It's more expensive than many Turkish blends, and as a result it's more of a status symbol (though highest status symbols are probably pod and espresso machines - in the eyes of the general population).

Moka pots are somewhat rare in the continental Croatia, they're more of a thing down by the coast. Everything else is virtually unknown and unused (we got a French press as a gift for Christmas and we love it - though it's pretty much unknown piece of gear around these parts).

That's basically it... hope you found it informative, if you have any questions, feel free to ask :)