You\u2019ll be able to enjoy your java in harbor-side coffee bars, in the presence of iconic Danish design, and under mosaic pendant lamps from Jordan, watching locals whizz by on bikes all the while. Shall we pedal right on?<\/p>\n
![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_roastcoffee_exterior_chloeweiser-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
ROAST Coffee<\/h4>\n
As I approach the ROAST Coffee<\/a> near Islands Brygge<\/a>, there\u2019s a group of three Danes sitting outside in the fog with winter coats and characteristically bare heads. I soon find that the coffee is so good that if there weren\u2019t seats inside, I\u2019d do the same. Trek over Copenhagen harbor onto Amager Island and you\u2019ll, too, encounter this narrow coffee bar and roastery that\u2019s much more than meets the eye.<\/p>\n Founded in 2015, ROAST boasts an impressive (8+) lineup of coffees roasted in-house, including a number of specialty dark roasts, any of which you can watch the baristas brew on pour-over. I opt for the Ethiopia Adado (black tea, peach, rose) and Kenya Kiangundo (blackcurrant, orange, chamomile); both make this rainy Sunday more vibrant than before.<\/p>\n ROAST coffees are purchased through the Cup of Excellence program and bear a \u201c50-50\u201d label<\/a> that guarantees farmers 50% of the retail price after tax. With this philosophy, the team aims to go \u201cBeyond Fair Trade\u201d and put higher emphasis on quality and sustainability.<\/p>\n During my visit, which the friendly staff say is a \u201cslow morning,\u201d there\u2019s an almost party atmosphere backed by the energetic 70s\/80s playlist. The baristas seem to make a connection with each customer in the steady stream pooling into an uneven line in front of the espresso machine emblazoned with the ROAST logo. Circular bulbs like clear marbles extend on thin black stems from the ceiling, creating a warm contrast from the concrete walls.<\/p>\n Needless to say, it\u2019s not the type of cafe you go to hide. Grab a stool against the long wooden bar\u2014it\u2019s well worth the walk across the Langebro (or “long bridge”).<\/p>\n Darcy\u2019s Kaffe<\/a> started as a specialty coffee cart in 2018, and opened its first, bright corner cafe on Rantzausgade in 2020. Its single-line art logo was designed by Millar\u2019s friend Christina Capper, and the cafe features merch and local art by cafe staff. The atmosphere, with rouge accents, dried flowers, and a mix of IKEA and vintage finds has drawn comparison to Berlin cafes\u2014but the unique appeal only starts there.<\/p>\n At Darcy\u2019s, the scent of coriander wafts through the air, laptops are banned during weekends, and even Mondays bring a righteous buzz. A quick glance at the menu brings up an intriguing question: What\u2019s the difference between the \u201ccomfy\u201d versus \u201cexciting\u201d espresso?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about the origin and the bean, and pricks our customers\u2019 curiosity,\u201d Millar tells me. During my visit, the \u201cexciting\u201d espresso (brewed manually) is a red-honey processed Ethiopia, while the house \u201ccomfy\u201d espresso (programmed volumetrically) is single-origin from La Cabra<\/a>, a Copenhagen-based roaster, both brewed on their La Marzocco Linea PB<\/a>. You can also opt for a tasting experience to try espresso both ways: first a milk drink, then a single espresso, served in stackable ACME cups. Oat and lactose-free milk are available at no upcharge.<\/p>\n Millar switches up the batch-brew and pour-over offer regularly from local and international roasters in an effort to \u201cbring the best from around, to Copenhagen.\u201d This penchant for novelty extends to food and pastries, made by Head of Kitchen Andr\u00e9 Kaliff and Head Baker Sylvain Tarpi, formerly of Il Buco<\/a> and Juno<\/a>. From the avocado toast with chili jam and homemade ricotta, to the banana bread with miso and sesame seeds, and finally the cinnamon bun with cascara and coffee glaze, everything here is even better than the first impression.<\/p>\n Naim Al-Kassab was born and raised in culturally diverse N\u00f8rrebro, a quarter of Copenhagen now considered among the most happening in the city. When he founded Arabica<\/a> in 2011 in N\u00f8rrebro\u2019s nuclear center, Al-Kassab tells me, \u201cthere was a social element missing.\u201d That seems to have changed: At least three people wave or shake hands with him while I ask him questions over my turmeric latte.<\/p>\n Al-Kassab\u2019s emphasis on the intersection of good service and good community is evident. The shop evokes an Arabian living room, with cozy, dim lighting, an assortment of embroidered chairs and couches, colorful rugs, and mosaic tiles, all illuminated by the mosaic pendant lamps Al-Kassab brought in from Jordan. \u201cI wanted to build a small oasis where I could feel my culture and feel at home,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The cafe boasts an extensive menu with excellent homemade smoothies (like my favorite, the Arabian Dream), as well as a vegan\/vegetarian-friendly mix of Middle Eastern and Scandi bites like halloumi, labne, baba ganoush, foul, and various cakes. Baristas serve espresso-based drinks on a VBM machine<\/a> with beans from Morettino<\/a>, the Palermo-based roastery and first native Sicilian coffee producer. Signage around the shop build awareness of the Arab connection to coffee, local community initiatives, and the Palestinian cause.<\/p>\n \u201cArabica wouldn\u2019t exist without our customers. They make it unique,\u201d he continues, sharing that the community around the cafe is so tight-knit that some customers, who kept Arabica from closing during the pandemic, have their own keys. \u201cEveryone knows each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, there\u2019s only one Arabica. Above all, Al-Kassab tells me, he\u2019s happy with the good energy he\u2019s cultivated at the center of his single, spirited operation.<\/p>\n 20 Grams<\/a> is on a quiet cobblestone street just around the corner from the buzzing N\u00f8rreport transport hub (and Coffee Collective\u2019s phone booth<\/a>). A step inside reveals a world of color and whimsy, starting with a La Marzocco FB70<\/a>, which the team reconditioned and repainted in the cafe\u2019s representative yellow.<\/p>\n Founded in 2018 by husband-wife team Daniel and Claudia Bokor, 20 Grams is the fruit of Daniel\u2019s 13 years of experience helping other people open cafes. \u201cWe wanted to create a cozy, second home the way we <\/i>imagined it,\u201d Daniel writes in an email. They use 20 grams of ground coffee in a double shot of espresso, hence the name.<\/p>\n Customers are a key part of the cafe\u2019s quirky, evolving aesthetic. Just like you never step into the same stream twice, you might never step twice into the same 20 Grams: \u201cAfter we opened, we asked people to bring in things that represent them in exchange for a cup of coffee and a smile,\u201d Daniel explains, and years later, customers still loan the cafe beloved, sometimes handcrafted items to sit alongside the owners\u2019 family photos.<\/p>\n The cafe\u2019s multicultural Portrait Wall embodies the team\u2019s desire to \u201ccreate a place where everyone is welcomed, regardless of age, gender, occupation, nationality, or race\u201d as well as something \u201ceven two strangers can discuss,\u201d Daniel writes.<\/p>\n Conversations about everything from indigenous history to Frida Kahlo\u2019s paintings can take place over 20 Grams\u2019 extensive coffee and food menu; the cafe typically serves single-origin medium roasts, often partnering with Copenhagen-based Impact Roasters<\/a>, whose Ethiopian and Bosnian-Danish founding team roast direct-trade coffee from Ethiopia. Pro tip: Follow up on what\u2019s billed as \u201cmy wife\u2019s mysterious homemade cheesecake.\u201d<\/p>\n Need a break from sightseeing in the center of Copenhagen? Step down into CUB Coffee Bar<\/a>, founded 2017\u2014the only specialty joint you\u2019ll find so close to Christiansborg Palace and many major museums.<\/p>\n The cafe, hidden off the main street, is marked by its green signs featuring the cafe\u2019s cute bear cub logo that\u2019s also on their cups. Inside, you\u2019ll find a laid-back, unpretentious atmosphere that feels like you\u2019re visiting your friend\u2019s decked-out basement cafe, complete with white and green accents; low, exposed, wooden ceiling beams; game tables; and a model ship\u2014plus lots of cozy nooks with reading lamps and faux-white fur seat covers.<\/p>\n Most importantly, you\u2019ll find a strong emphasis on presentation from coffee to buns. Before taking over from the original founders in mid-2022, owner Hans Kristian Andersen worked at the earlier incarnation of CUB while studying and later sold a bakery. His new venture is off to a good start; the crowd is about 50% regulars, he tells me, and business is busier now than ever.<\/p>\n Andersen started by adding breakfast, pastries and croissants he makes himself to the cafe menu. \u201cI like production and making things in big amounts,\u201d he says, and believes that though \u201ceveryone asks about the coffee, the buns are just as important.\u201d That said, he sources beans through roaster Copenhagen Coffee Lab<\/a>, serving Brazil Campo Das Vertentes, sweet with a soft mouthfeel, on espresso and rotating Ethiopian and Kenyan beans on filter.<\/p>\n The innovative culinary spirit is present here in big amounts. For his second year in business, Andersen says, \u201cI\u2019m planning iced lattes that\u201d\u2014believe it or not\u2014\u201cfeature cheese as an ingredient.\u201d<\/p>\n Just across from Dronning Louises Bro (Queen Louise Bridge), you\u2019ll encounter Social<\/a>\u2019s inviting yellow exterior with picnic tables and a view on the Peblinge Lake. The colorful cafe was founded in 2015 by friends Sebastian Streit Jeppesen, Frederik Nemo Andersen, and Yussuf Yurary Poulsen<\/a> (a professional football player in the Danish national team and RB Leipzig), who built it from the ground up in their mid-20s.<\/p>\n Social is known for combining healthy food with good coffee. The cafe first gained recognition as the \u201cBest Coffee Shop in Copenhagen\u201d by Danish newspaper Berlingske in 2017<\/a> for their breakfast boards\u2014before they became widely popular\u2014and big lunch salads. You\u2019ll also find organic and gluten-free buns and excellent chia pudding made with homemade jam alongside their cheerful, seafoam-blue coffee cups.<\/p>\n The \u201ctrue backbone of the coffee shop\u201d is Social\u2019s La Marzocco GB5<\/a>, writes Jeppesen in an email. Though Social doesn\u2019t serve filter coffee, \u201cWe take pride in manual espresso brewing, and teach the baristas to properly taste, scale and detail the coffee, every day.\u201d Social rotates espressos, roasted with their friends at fellow Copenhagen cafe Social Brew<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an experience you can enjoy in a wide and inviting space, where birch trunks hold up part of the ceiling and you can cozy up for a chat in varied seating with linen pillows under the dark wood ceiling beams.<\/p>\n Critically, the cafe\u2019s name also refers to the \u201csocial\u201d responsibility key to their business. \u201cThere\u2019s simply no other way to do it these days,\u201d Jeppesen writes. \u201cWith coffee production under pressure all around the world, we need to pay the people working with these beautiful products in a responsible way, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Patrik Rolf, a Swedish national and 2022 World Barista Championship finalist, founded April<\/a> in Copenhagen in 2016. After working for other roasters, he wanted \u201cto create a platform where I could express my own perspective on coffee. The name April is a play on seasonality and represents a time of year when I find the most inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n Rolf and the April team take an \u201cuncompromising approach\u201d to roasting and serving coffee\u2014and The April Store functions as a showroom for the work of the producers. It brims with Danish themes and styles, designed in-house, with furniture by Danish designer Finn Juhl<\/a>, writes Rolf in an email, \u201cto create a \u2018living room\u2019 feeling that gives us the opportunity to put the coffee in focus.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s also set apart by its focus on service, which Rolf feels is declining. \u201cI wanted a place where coffee wasn\u2019t transactional, and where you could relax and forget about the outside world.\u201d<\/p>\n The April Store uses a Modbar<\/a> to brew espresso and their branded April Brewers<\/a> for filter, both mainly served black. The team has a \u201c1 Farmer, 1 Roaster, 1 Coffee\u201d philosophy, purchasing single varietal coffees directly from single farms to ensure farm-to-cup quality and traceability. Rolf is especially proud of April\u2019s collaboration with Alejo Castro, manager of the Volc\u00e1n Azul farm in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n Though April has always set the bar high, Rolf shares that now, \u201cWe want to be a part of redefining what the very top of the industry tastes like.\u201d Their brand is continually in bloom: April Store Seoul just opened in November 2022.<\/p>\n Chlo\u00e9 Skye Weiser (<\/em>@apostropheskye<\/em><\/a>) is a freelance writer based in Denmark.\u00a0Read more Chlo\u00e9 Skye Weiser for Sprudge<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Where to drink coffee in Copenhagen, Denmark.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":381,"featured_media":197062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7029],"tags":[28598,14722,8280,3228,19214,355,3051,6637,28600,28593,4741,9420,28594,28599,28595,8116,11172,10200,6933,5404,28597,28592,28601,28602,7484,28596],"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"link","format":"url"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197050"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_roastcoffee_interior_chloeweiser-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_darcyskaffe_interior2_small_Maya-Matsuura-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDarcy\u2019s Kaffe<\/h4>\n
![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_darcyskaffe_exterior_chloeweiser-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_arabica_interiorchoice1_Tharani-Mahesan-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nArabica<\/h4>\n
![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_arabica_interiorchoice2_chloeweiser-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_20grams_interior_chloeweiser-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n20 Grams<\/h4>\n
![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_20grams_interior_small_Daniel-Bokor-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_CUB_exterior_chloeweiser-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCUB Coffee Bar<\/h4>\n
![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_CUB_interior_chloeweiser-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_social_exterior_chloeweiser-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSocial<\/h4>\n
![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_social_interior_small_Sebastian-Streit-Jeppesen-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_aprilstorecopenhagen_interior2_The-April-Team-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nApril Store Copenhagen<\/h4>\n
![\"copenhagen](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/copenhagen_aprilstorecopenhagen_interior1_The-April-Team-1200x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n