![]() Former Bar Tergesteo, unfortunately now replaced by a…. Caffè Tergesteo, until recently located in the eponymous gallery on Piazza della Borsa, Bar Venier in Piazza Goldoni, Café Garibaldi, Caffè Flora and Caffè Orientale, the latter three in Piazza Unità d’Italia, are just a few examples of Trieste’s rich coffee-cultural heritage that have been lost to history. Unfortunately, many of Trieste’s historic cafés have been destroyed or transformed beyond recognition. The poet Umberto Saba in front of Caffè Garibaldi in Piazza Unità d’Italia. James Joyce, Stendhal, Kafka, Italo Svevo and Umberto Saba and the contemporary Triestine writers Paolo Rumiz, Fulvio Tomizza, or Claudio Magris each had their favorite café. Soon, the city’s cafés became thè places to be, where people could mingle in the typical, friendly but anonymous, Triestine way. There were also literary cafés, mostly frequented by intellectuals, writers and artists. Others were frequented by the bourgeoisie or by business men. Some cafés became the meeting places for the irredentists, Italian nationalists who advocated the return to Italy of Italian-speaking districts under Austrian-Hungarian rule such as Trieste, Gorizia, Istria and Dalmatia. With the time, the cafés became associated with specific socio-cultural groups rather than national communities. Pagine Della Vita Triestina Dal 1800 Al 1830 by Giuseppe Caprin. By 1857 the city counted 57 coffee houses (according to a guide published by Lloyd Austriaco) for a population that counted hardly 56,000 inhabitants. Stella Polare, for example, was mostly frequented by the German community, whereas Caffè Greco was the bastion for the Greek community and Griot, founded by a Swiss family, the meeting point for the Triestine nobility and business men. At first, each coffee house was associated with a clientele of specific origin. Just like a good blend of coffee is composed of beans of different flavors and origins, so is the city’s history and culture made of different languages and traditions, which is in turn reflected in its coffee houses. It was in fact not much more than a license to sell “hot and cold waters, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, lemonades and syrup water” in addition to the permission to have “biliard tables and bake biscuits”. Nicolo’ (formerly Contrada Bottari) in 1768. Trieste’s first “coffee shop” (then called cafeteria) opened in Via S. This creates the rather unique experience of tasting a different coffee in every café. Actually, this is precisely what characterizes the coffee production in Trieste, which has no equivalent in the rest of Italy, except maybe in Naples and Palermo, where small coffee roasting businesses cater directly to Trieste’s coffee houses. Many of Trieste’s historic cafés used their own brands and blends of coffee, and some still do today. They have developed their own coffee jargon, only intelligible by the initiated, that can be rather confusing for the non-locals. The unique rapport between the Triestines and their favorite brewage (the inhabitants of Trieste drink almost twice as much coffee as the rest of Italy, 10kg per capita a year versus 5.8kg for the national average) is even visible in their language. Add to that the city’s many historic cafés and you’ll understand why the aroma of freshly-roasted beans and brewed coffee is always swirling in the air. The capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region also serves as a global hub for the coffee roasting industry, with among the many small, local coffee roasting businesses also the world famous Triestine company, Illy. ![]() Since the 18th century the Adriatic seaport has been the Mediterranean’s main coffee harbor, where the green beans arrive from around the world. More than any other city in Italy, Trieste is inextricably linked to the world of coffee.
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