Technology and Culture

Braunschweig und der Kaffee. Die Geschichte des Röstkaffeemarktes von den Anfängen bis in unsere Tage [Braunschweig and coffee: The history of the coffee roasting market from the beginning to the present] By Peter Albrecht. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2018. Pp. 502.

The title of this book suggests a local history on the development of a market for roasted coffee, and the central question of the introduction seems to strengthen this local focus. It is more than a local history, however. The author is a known expert on the history of coffee and coffee production and presents a comprehensive and insightful study on the history of roasting coffee and related technical innovations in Germany. His research is largely based on unpublished and unexplored sources.

He begins with the simple question of what we understand as coffee. Today Germans link a cup of good coffee with coffee brewed from roasted beans, but since its arrival in Europe in the late sixteenth century, coffee has been associated with a variety of products (ch. 1). The author reveals a bewildering variety of meanings that have been associated with coffee, from mocha, ground coffee, espresso, and coffee substitutes such as chicory coffee, to the latest invention of coffee pads (chs. 2–3). Some of these products originated from the creativity of businesses, others from technical innovations such as the introduction of electric coffee grinders, espresso machines, or new production processes like decaffeination or the invention of artificial coffee beans.

Next, Albrecht address the history of roasting processes from the seventeenth century onwards (chs. 4–7). In the early period, roasting was done at home in open iron pans or closed pot stirrers (agitators). Coffee production and retailing were revolutionized by industrialization, which began in Germany after the mid-nineteenth century. It started with the invention of the ball or drum roaster by a machine factory in Emmerich. The author presents a knowledgeable and comprehensive history of the rapid mechanization of coffee production: the variety of roasting and other machines needed for cleaning and sorting green coffee beans, automatic scales, and packaging machines. Mechanization also changed the heating processes. Industrial roasting began with the application of external heating [End Page 597] by coal or wood. It was replaced at first by external and then by internal air heating till the 1970s, when fluid-bed roasters were introduced. He also investigates the various technical processes of refining coffee before and after roasting, including decaffeinating and frosting.

The Second World War caused a profound break in the consumption and mechanization of coffee production in Germany. Only since the early 1950s did a renewed technical upswing towards modern large-scale roasters begin. It was accompanied by a process that led to the disappearance of small and midsized businesses. However, the last few decades saw the reemergence of small roasteries producing for a high-quality regional market.

The final chapter closes with an overview of the history of retailing between the seventeenth and twentieth century. In the beginning, consumers bought green coffee in pharmacies or from retail traders. That changed in the nineteenth century with the emergence of coffee stores and other specialty stores that sold sweets and colonial goods besides coffee. Decisive innovations in retailing occurred after World War II. Retailing was revolutionized in Germany in the late 1950s with the appearance of self-service stores and big supermarkets. It was a dramatic change, which led to a substantial reduction of specialty retailers and extensive concentration in food retailing. Coffee was increasingly bought from larger supermarkets and discount retailers such as Aldi or Lidl. The only specialty coffee retail store that has survived is Tschibo, though its range of goods has...