Photo: From The Festival’s Facebook page
Jerzy (or Yuriy) Franciszek Kulczycki, born in a village outside of Lviv, in what was then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, brought coffee culture to Europe in the 17th century. During the Siege of Vienna, he and a servant snuck in Turkish disguise across the Ottoman lines. They obtained valuable information that encouraged the Viennese not to surrender – and they also brought back coffee beans.
Soon after, according to lore at least, Jerzy opened the first European coffeehouse, Under the Blue Bottle, which kicked off centuries of waves of coffee development in the western world. Today, people wait in line sometimes for hours to get coffee from Blue Bottle in San Francisco.
And in Lviv, in the region of Jerzy’s birth, coffee house culture thrives. Leopolitans – the people of Lviv – like to lounge in the cafés throughout the city drinking espressos, pour-overs, filter coffee, and, in a nod to tourists, coffee-on-fire. Each autumn the Potocki Palace grounds hosts the Lviv Coffee Festiva l – where organizers namethe city’s best coffee house.
This year’s winner: «Kredens Cafe,» with a few locations in Lviv, including here. The executive director of the cafe, Arsen Shlapak, expressed his gratitude on his Facebook page:
«Thank you all for this award. For me, this is a sign that we are moving in the right direction, and that we must not stop! KREDENS CAFE is the best coffee shop!»
You can find a statue of Jerzy here.
Here is another story about a Ukrainian coffee city: «In Uzhhorod, ‘Coffee is a Power that Holds Us’»
What is your favorite coffeeshop in Lviv? We invite you to post in the comments.
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