Specialty coffee in Greece.

Greece drinks more coffee than most of Europe and drinks most of it cold. The frappé, instant coffee shaken with ice, took over in the late fifties; when espresso arrived in the nineties the Greeks did the same thing to it, and the freddo espresso and freddo cappuccino have been the national drinks ever since, in January as much as July. By the industry's own estimate, roughly two cups in three are cold.

Specialty arrived through a family business. Taf, an old Athens coffee company, turned towards direct trade and single estates in 2006 and opened a shop on Emmanouil Benaki in 2009 that taught the city to cup. Peristeri got a roastery-bar in 2012, Thissio got The Underdog in 2015, and the roasters spread out through the suburbs where Athenians actually live. Thessaloniki built its own scene around Ladadika.

The Greek habit is roasting for ice. A freddo made with a light single origin is a different drink from one made with a dark blend, and Greek roasters have spent a decade working out how to keep the acidity and the fruit when the coffee is shaken cold. Meanwhile the old briki coffee is getting the specialty treatment too, and the competition scene keeps producing world finalists.

Taf is where it started, with direct relationships with farms, a training centre and a wholesale network across the country, and it still sets the tone. The Underdog in Thissio roasts experimental lots and rare varieties with a shelf of Coffee in Good Spirits trophies behind the bar. Kudu supplies a good share of the capital's cafés from everyday blends to single estates, Samba roasts on the western edge of the city, and Black Bart, Create and Scritto fill out the centre.

Athens roasts in its suburbs. Rizopoulos, Omsom

Athens holds most of the roasters, Thessaloniki holds the north, and Crete, the Peloponnese and the regional cities each have a roaster worth finding.

Freddo espresso, a double shot shaken hard over ice, and freddo cappuccino, the same with a cap of cold-whipped milk foam. That is most of the day's coffee, year round. Roasters pick and roast for it: Brazil for body and stability under ice, naturals for sweetness, washed Ethiopians and Central Americans for the ones who want a cold coffee that tastes of somewhere. On the shelf, Colombia, Brazil and Ethiopia anchor most catalogs, with Guatemala, Costa Rica and Kenya in the single-origin lists.

Hot filter (V60, AeroPress, Chemex) lives in the specialty cafés and with enthusiasts at home, and it is growing. So is specialty Greek coffee: some roasters now grind a light-roasted single estate fine enough for the briki. Washed lots carry the classic single origins, naturals go into the freddos, and anaerobic, thermal-shock and fruit co-fermented lots have a keen following at roasters like The Underdog. After washed, the shelves lean on natural (×115) and honey (×4). 57 decaf coffees are listed right now, and 87 of the current listings are roasted for filter or for both methods.

Greek specialty is priced for a country that drinks a lot of it: the everyday blends are gentle, the rare lots are not. These figures come from every Greek coffee currently listed with a price, not a sample we chose. The going rate today is €34 per kilogram, against €47 across every roaster in the directory.

The ladder reads like this: espresso blends built for the freddo at the everyday end around €29 per kilogram, washed single origins from about €46 per kilogram, and the rarest bag currently listed at €367 per kilogram. 458 coffees carry a price today. Most roasters run a webshop with subscriptions and capsule lines, and courier delivery reaches the islands.