Copenhagen's coffee culture is pulling in two directions

Cool, chic, and surprisingly well-caffeinated, Copenhagen’s coffee culture is booming. Ask anyone at any speciality coffee chain, and you'll hear of a city that’s serious about its cup. Yet amid these high-brow coffee shops, small local cafés are still everywhere in the city, serving cosy cups to their community. 

Danes drink an average of 4.2 cups of coffee per day and consistently rank among the top 5 countries for coffee consumption. It’s therefore no surprise that many people around the country have invested a lot in their beloved drink. 

“The focus on quality has definitely increased a lot over the last decade or so," said Siv Maria, who has worked as a bar manager at Coffee Collective for 8 years. “In Copenhagen, people have started to geek out more at home, buy more equipment and buy better coffee to brew.” 

Many of Copenhagen’s speciality coffee shops have become well known on the global coffee scene. Coffee Collective is one of them, co-founded by Klaus Thomsen, who won the World Barista Championship in 2006. The chain prides itself on its high-quality and ethically sourced coffee beans. “We had, in all modesty, helped put Copenhagen on the global coffee map,” said Thomsen in an interview with Wonderful Copenhagen. 

But outside of the sleek speciality coffee shops, Copenhagen still hosts many cosy neighbourhood cafés, where the focus is less on what’s inside the cup, and more on who's at the table. "There's a lot of regulars here, who come here either every day or a couple of times a week, and people just join the tables and talk to everybody," said Noah, a barista at Pauseriet, a small café owned by Danish couple Thorben and Vanessa.

The coffee culture here is entirely different. The café isn’t only selling drinks, but also providing a space for community to form. “The owners are kind of talkative; they have a lot of friends with the regulars, so I think a lot of people get fascinated by the place and by the culture here,” Noah continued. The cup of coffee becomes less about the beans or brewing and more about the people around it. "It's no question asked... you can always drink a cup of coffee just for the sake of cosiness."