What We Learned About The Coffee Culture In Denmark (Scandinavia)

Writing about the incredible effect some coffee shops have on ourselves and our conversations is not a cutting-edge topic. We’re here to remind you that travelling can happen in our minds, while enjoying a coffee in that special café across the street. The speed of thought can take us far far away till the pyramids of Egypt or the Himalayan mountains.

It is common for people to have crushes on certain coffee shops.  Sometimes it happens that you hear about this dandy café in x city, where an old bartender with a pair of glasses and an eternal half-opened book awaits to serve you. This kind of description can make some of us circle it on a map as a next touristic stop. Why? Maybe because it matches one’s bohemian self and artistic expectations. In other words, because we tend to create personal connections with the places that contain bits of ourselves.

Cafés are spread all over a city as oases to retreat with your partner, friend, family, dog, oneself. Normally we go for the coffee shops that make us feel at ease, at home. Imagine the feeling if you would come across these outside homes accidentally! You’d surrender instantly. Some call it serendipity.

We are about to show you some pictures of two pretty pretty cafés we discovered in our latest escape in Denmark. Before that, there are a few things you should know about the coffee culture that will most certainly dazzle you once you travel to Scandinavia (apparently, Swedish just like Norwegians follow the same guidelines when building their coffee shops). You’d be surprised especially if you come from a country such as Portugal, which has a rich coffee culture with coffee shops at every corner. Espresso or bica as they call it,  is the most common type of coffee. It is a strong energizing beverage and they consume it a lot, at lunch, brunch, linner, dinner, whenever. You see them standing at the bar serving it along various pastries, particularly pasteis de nata. Therefore a five minutes stop for a quick coffee and a pastel is typical. Curious as it may seem, Portuguese are carefree people but the relationship with their coffee resumes to pick-me-up and drink-me-now. So for Portuguese,”let’s go for a coffee”, is just a substitute for any break time, which surely doesn’t entail a coffee-drinking ritual.

On the other side, the Scandinavian culture has a different approach. They serve coffee by gallons, which does engage a ceremony of preparing the coffee, having a sit and enjoying it. What’s fascinating is how they create the space around the coffee. The cafés here are truly heavenly hideaways, cozy indoors to refuge from the cold weather. You can even find cafés with only two or three tables. It is indescribable the feeling you get once you enter in a Scandinavian café. The smell of coffee and cookies, the warmth and the flickering candles invite you to drop your worries outside and simply relax for a while. Spending some intimate time around your coffee in such special spaces remains a memory. It is what brought us to write this blog post.

Because of the cold our walk on the streets of Copenhagen couldn’t last more than an hour or so. That is why we often stopped for a coffee, or to be more precise, for a café.  Here are some snapshots of the two coffee shops we liked the most.

Truly lovely discoveries. We hope that you got a glimpse into what a café in Denmark looks like, feels like… tastes like.