Specialty coffee in Prague.

Prague had grand cafés before it had good coffee: Slavia, Louvre, the literary rooms of the First Republic. After 1948 the state took over the hospitality trade and the coffee became turek, grounds stirred into hot water and left to settle. The first sign of change was a coffee house called Ebel in the old town in 1996, roasting single origins fresh, and then an American named Charles Fleer importing green coffee for La Bohème from 2003.

The scene as Praguers know it came in a rush between 2008 and 2013: Mamacoffee roasting fair-trade coffee on Vodičkova, Doubleshot buying direct from farms and roasting Nordic-light in a village east of the city, its café Můj šálek kávy opening in a Karlín still recovering from the 2002 floods, a cellar roastery in Vinohrady, and the first Prague Coffee Festival in 2012. Then the champions: Candycane, founded by competition baristas in 2017, and the sourdough bakery in Libeň that also roasts for a chain of espresso bars.

Prague also produced a chain. The Miners started in a Vinohrady espresso bar in 2019 and now roasts in a Libeň office park for shops from Madrid to Berlin. Batch-brew filter is on nearly every counter, espresso tonic is the summer drink, and the national barista final fills a sports hall.

Doubleshot is the reference: direct trade with farms in Colombia, Panama and Ethiopia, light roasts from its plant in Dehtáry, and two cafés in Karlín and Dejvice. Mamacoffee roasts fair-trade lots for its own cafés, a bakery and a school, and its founder helped start the festival. La Bohème roasts for hotels and restaurants and shows its coffee on Sázavská, with a Cup of Excellence judge choosing the lots. Candycane roasts light in an industrial park in Malešice and runs a showroom on Kozí Street. The Miners roasts at The DOCK in Libeň for its own chain, in cans and compostable capsules as well as bags.

Ebel has roasted in the centre since 1996 and still keeps a long list. Francin roasts in Holešovice with a wide range. Alf & Bet roasts and bakes in Libeň for the EMA bars. Dos Mundos roasts in Vinohrady and Letná; Kavárna Pražírna roasts in its cellar. Coffee Source in Žižkov roasts and supplies espresso machines across the city. Mazelab and Project FOX

Prague's cafés follow the tram lines through the nineteenth-century districts; the roasting machines sit in the industrial ring beyond.

A batch-brew filter in the morning, a flat white or an oat cortado through the day, an espresso tonic from May to September. Manual filter, V60 and Origami mostly, comes out in the afternoon. On the shelf, Honduras, Colombia and Ethiopia lead Prague's listed origins, washed leads the processes with natural behind it, and Colombia and Ethiopia between them carry most catalogs.

The roast is light and clean, built for sweetness and fruit acidity for customers who came from commercial coffee, and washed lots remain the daily standard. Anaerobic, thermal-shock and co-fermented coffees sell quickly to the younger crowd. Decaf has moved to single-origin sugarcane-process lots. The live count stands at 10 decaf and 1 filter-friendly listings.

Czech roasters price in crowns; the figures here are in euros so you can compare across the directory. They come from every Prague coffee currently listed with a price, not a sample we chose. The going rate today is €60 per kilogram, about €15 for a standard bag.

The ladder reads like this: espresso blends and washed Latin Americans around €48 per kilogram, washed Ethiopians and the first fermented lots from about €81 per kilogram, and the most expensive listing right now at €223 per kilogram. 138 coffees carry a price today. Most roasters sell online with subscriptions, and the bigger ones ship across Central Europe.