U Zlatého hada: Prague's First Coffee House
Why is it significant?
Pause on the corner of Karlova and Liliová, in front of the house called U Zlatého hada, At the Golden Snake, and let the crowds heading for Charles Bridge stream past you.
Key Facts
| Place | U Zlatého hada: Prague's First Coffee House |
|---|---|
| Address | Karlova 181/18, 110 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08590, 14.41620 |
| Part of Walk | Dark Lager and Dumplings: Prague's Historic Beer Halls & Food Markets |
| Generated | Generated |
Pause on the corner of Karlova and Liliová, in front of the house called U Zlatého hada, At the Golden Snake, and let the crowds heading for Charles Bridge stream past you. Most of them have no idea that a quiet revolution in Prague's drinking habits is said to have started right here, and that it had nothing to do with beer.
Prague tradition says that around 1714 an Armenian merchant called Deodatus Damajan opened the first coffee house in the city in this house. Before that, the story goes, he had sold the strange black drink from a stall and on the streets, pouring it for curious burghers who had never tasted anything so bitter. Coffee had reached Central Europe through the Ottoman world, and Armenian traders were among those who carried the habit from Istanbul to Vienna and on to Prague.
It caught on slowly, then completely. By the nineteenth century Prague had dozens of coffee houses, and in the decades around 1900 they became the city's living rooms: places where Czech and German writers, students and politicians read newspapers for hours, argued, wrote and occasionally fell in love, all for the price of a single cup. The beer hall was for the evening and the crowd; the café was for the morning, the newspaper and the quarrel.
And then there is turek, Turkish coffee, Czech style. During the communist decades the standard coffee of Czechoslovakia was simply ground coffee with boiling water poured straight on top, left to settle in the glass so that the last mouthful was mud. Many older Czechs still make it that way at home, and they will tell you, quite seriously, that it is the only honest coffee there is.
So in one short stretch of the Old Town you have the two great Prague drinks side by side: the golden beer of the tavern and the black coffee of Damajan's house. Now turn into Liliová, the narrow lane running south from this corner, and follow it to Betlémské náměstí, the square of the chapel where Jan Hus once preached. Our next story is about a family that brewed beer and then changed its name.