Specialty coffee in Munich.

Munich calls itself the northernmost city of Italy, and its coffee agreed for decades: dark, thick-crema espresso, a cappuccino with whipped cream on top if you were not careful. Christian Müller opened an espresso bar by the Viktualienmarkt in 1997 and spent years explaining that bitter did not mean good. Bernd Braune founded Supremo in Unterhaching in 2005, judged Cup of Excellence, and then, with his son Raphael, designed the Comandante hand grinder in the family roastery.

The light-roast turn came from the outside in. Johannes Bayer started JB Kaffee in Schwabhausen around 2011, roasting so light that London and Berlin cafés bought it before Munich did. In 2014 Marco and Conny Mehrwald opened Man versus Machine on Müllerstraße and refused to serve a latte macchiato, and Mahlefitz ran one of the first Loring hot-air roasters in Germany in Maxvorstadt. Then came the markets: Standl 20 at Elisabethmarkt, a roaster stall at the Viktualienmarkt, Sweet Spot pouring Sey and La Cabra beside the vegetables.

The result is a two-track city. Fausto still roasts dark in a nineteenth-century mill on the Auer Mühlbach for people who want body, and Stray in the Westend prints its green-coffee prices on the wall for people who want to know. Berlin's The Barn chose Munich for its first German expansion in 2023, which tells you which way the wind was blowing.

Man versus Machine is the reference: a Loring in the city, omni-roasts built to work as espresso and filter alike, direct lots from Café Pacas in El Salvador, and two cafés with a strict idea of what a coffee menu is. JB Kaffee roasts ultra-light out in Schwabhausen for cafés across Europe and barely bothers with a shop. Supremo in Unterhaching roasts everything from competition micro-lots to dark blends, runs an academy, and shares a building with the Comandante grinder. Stray roasts light in the Westend and publishes what it paid for the green coffee. ALRIGHTY roasts on renewable electricity in the Werksviertel and pays a premium to farmers it calls underdogs.

Vits der Kaffee has roasted single origins near Isartor since 2006 and keeps a long list of them; Café Blá roasts its Nordic profiles on Vits's machine. Kaffeerösterei Viktualienmarkt roasts on a drum inside the market. Pacandé in Sendling imports only Colombian coffee and roasts it region by region. Fausto roasts a dozen espressos in the old mill. emilo supplies hotels and grocers by the tonne. Suuapinga roasts for its own five cafés and bakery. And Münchner Kaffeerösterei keeps a café and a short, steady list.

Munich's cafés sit in the inner quarters and the markets; the roasting happens in the industrial east and the suburbs.

A cappuccino or an espresso first, and a flat white where the specialty crowd gathers; filter came late here and the omni-roast was invented to bridge the gap. On the shelf, Burundi, Colombia and Costa Rica lead Munich's listed origins, natural leads the processes with washed behind it.

The two tracks share the shelves: Fausto's and the Viktualienmarkt's dark, chocolatey espressos for the old palate, JB's and Stray's very light single origins for the new one, and Man versus Machine's omni-roasts in between. Fruit-macerated co-ferments and thermal-shock lots have a following at Stray and Man versus Machine; single-serve drip bags from emilo and Suuapinga have taken filter coffee into offices. The live count stands at 1 decaf and 6 filter-friendly listings.

Munich's ladder runs from the market stall's blends to Stray's Geshas. These numbers come from every Munich coffee currently listed with a price, not a sample we chose. The going rate today is €36 per kilogram, about €9 for a standard bag.

The ladder reads like this: espresso blends and washed Latin Americans around €36 per kilogram, washed East Africans and the first fermented lots from about €50 per kilogram, and the most expensive listing right now at €116 per kilogram. 40 coffees carry a price today. Most roasters sell online with subscriptions and ship across Germany and Austria.