Season II kicks off with Hygge in

Copenhagen, Denmark

Welcome back! We kick start Season II with a new theme centred around a specific City, capturing nuances about Coffee & Culture in that city with side stories about Cycling.

The best city to start: Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark and best known for the concept of Hygge (pronounced Hue-Gah). Hygge is a quality of presence and an experience of togetherness. It is about an atmosphere and an experience, rather than about things. It is about being with the people we love and care for. A feeling of home. A feeling of being warm, safe and comforted and above all, it is a state of mind. While there is no direct translation for Hygge in English, the closest it comes to is Coziness.

Denmark constantly ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world. They are also the ones who meet most often with their friends and family and feel the calmest and most peaceful. Are Hygge and Happiness connected? Possibly yes and Coffee may well be the big catalyst here!

Copenhageners are generally a friendly and polite lot. They love their cycling which is accentuated by an amazing infrastructure in the form of dedicated bike lanes, and you’ll see almost everyone biking to work.  Copenhagen has been working hard to reduce the amount of car traffic for years. For the visitors, there are extensive cycle routes and tons of shops to hire bikes from (many hotels also lend them) and get the vibes of a Copenhagener!

Now to my Top2 favourite coffee places in Copenhagen:

1.       Prolog Coffee Bar, Vesterbro: Jonas Gehl and Sebastian Quistorff Sørensen opened Prolog in the Meatpacking district / Kødbyen in 2016.  Jonas won the Danish Barista Championship in 2018 and 2019 and went on to get the best coffee place award in the city for Prolog in 2019.

The space was originally intended to be temporary, but thanks to its stupendous success, this coffee bar became permanent and possibly, one of the most popular places to drink specialty coffee in Copenhagen. Following this success, Prolog opened a new coffee place in Østerbro later on.

Prolog’s motto: "To celebrate our love for coffee, we celebrate you."

Their goal has always been quite simple: To give their guests and wholesale customers a better coffee experience. They love to put in effort to make a great product & love to serve something of great quality to the people who visit them in Prolog coffee bar and to the coffee bars, restaurants, bakeries, etc. who use their coffee beans. 

That’s why they have their brand name, Prolog .. It’s always a beginning.

2.       Democratic Coffee, City Center:  Following an awful cup of coffee served in the Københavns Biblioteker Café, Oliver Oxfeldt put a business plan together, won the bid to take over the space and the rest they say is Coffee history in Copenhagen.

Started in 2011, Democratic Coffee is one of the oldest & the best cafés in Copenhagen. It is hidden off the lobby of the city’s main library, Københavns Bibliotek, few blocks away from Nørreport station. Head to the right when you step into the library, and you’ll find your way into a room with a long wood pane led bar echoing Nordic design.

with my Danish friend Niels & Argentinian amigo Fede

Why the name Democratic Coffee? It’s a nod to thousands of patrons who pass through the public library’s doors every year. Great Coffee paired with the calm of the next door library make for a cozy pit-stop, truly living up to Hyggeligt moments.

Hope you enjoyed this story as much as I loved writing it. Till we meet next week, Stay Well & Stay Caffeinated!