Cafeography
Cologne

Specialty coffee cafés in Cologne

Light roasts on Körnerstraße, roastery bars on Bonner Straße and a two-time German roasting champion in Ehrenfeld.

Photo: Clinton Weaver, Pexels License

Cologne roasted coffee long before the third wave reached it: Schamong on Venloer Straße has roasted since 1949 and is the city’s oldest roastery.1 The newer roasters work lighter and sell by the cup as well as by the bag. Ernst Kaffeeröster at Bonner Straße 56 calls its café a slow bar, roasts most of its beans light and buys its milk from a regional farmer.1

Ehrenfeld has the most specialty cafés by a distance, followed by the Südstadt, then Sülz & Klettenberg and the Altstadt. Körnerstraße alone has two roasters’ bars, and Venloer Straße adds two more further west.

Local tip: Buy beans where they are roasted: Kaffeeprinzen sells over the counter at Martinsfeld, and zwoo’s Elefant and Nashorn cost €10 per 250 g from November 2026.59

Where these cafés are: Südstadt (7), Ehrenfeld (6), Sülz & Klettenberg (5), Altstadt (3), Belgisches Viertel (1), Zülpicher Viertel (1), Agnesviertel & Eigelstein (1), Nippes (1), Zollstock & Bayenthal (1), Mülheim (1).

At a glance

27Cafés listed
19With opening hours
07:15Earliest opening
22:00Latest closing
  • Opens earliest: Coffee Lab, from 07:15 (Mon–Fri 07:15–22:00 · Sat–Sun 08:00–22:00).
  • Most common features: outdoor seating (41%), indoor seating (26%), wheelchair access (26%).

Nothing matches those filters here. See all cafés in Cologne.

Körnerstraße: Van Dyck and zwoo

Van Dyck started here in 2010, when Monika Linden and Martin Kess opened a roastery in a former hairdresser’s salon at Körnerstraße 43. The interior won an AIT Award in 2012, and the name comes from Van-Dyck-Braun, a brown the Flemish painter Anthonis van Dyck favored.2 The roasting has since moved to a large old brick building on Schanzenstraße in Mülheim, which also runs as a café.1

zwoo sells through a Kaffeefenster (coffee window) at Körnerstraße 73 and teaches barista, latte-art and sensory courses in its Kaffeeschule next door at number 71; the roastery itself is in Pulheim, just outside the city.3 The house line is direct trade and light roasts, and each coffee has an animal mascot, from a strong rhino to a decaf sloth.31 The window serves 09:00–18:00 on weekdays and 10:00–18:00 at weekends.

A roasting champion on Eichendorffstraße

Benson Coffee at Eichendorffstraße 49 belongs to Benjamin Pozsgai, German roasting champion in 2016 and 2019, third at the World Coffee Roasting Championship in 2017 and fourth in 2019.4 The shop runs as a store and training space, is a member of the Specialty Coffee Association, and pours espresso drinks, filter and cold brew; staff grind beans to suit the machine you use at home.41

Two longer-hours options sit on Venloer Straße. Coffee Lab at numbers 241–245 opens at 07:15 on weekdays and serves until 22:00 every day, unusually late for a coffee bar, while Cologne’s Roastery at number 425a opens 08:00–20:00 on weekdays and from 09:30 at weekends.

Südstadt, Sülz and the Neumarkt

In the Pantaleonsviertel, Kaffeeprinzen has roasted and sold at Martinsfeld 53a since 2013, in small batches several times a week at low temperatures on a 7 kg Diedrich drum roaster; the business began in 2008 in Steinhagen, on the edge of the Teutoburg Forest.5 Ernst opens weekdays 08:00–18:00, and WIEWALDI coffee roasters on Kleiner Griechenmarkt serves Thursday to Saturday only.

Holm opened its café at Lindenthalgürtel 61 at the end of September 2022, about 500 m from the Stadtwald (city forest). All its green coffee is organic and bought directly from smallholder cooperatives through the importers’ cooperative Roasters United.6 African Roasters is a few streets south on Sülzburgstraße. In the Altstadt, Blooming roasts light specialty coffee in Cologne for its own bar on Leonhard-Tietz-Straße and for other cafés.7

What a cup and a bag cost in 2026

In October 2026 Meine Ecke Specialty Coffee, a corner café on Leonhard-Tietz-Straße near Neumarkt, charged €3.50 for a cappuccino, €4.50 for a flat white and €5.90 for a V60 hand brew, poured separately for each cup.8 It opens 08:00–18:00 from Monday to Saturday and 09:00–17:00 on Sunday.

Beans are getting dearer. At the end of October 2026 zwoo announced that its Elefant and Nashorn house coffees would rise from €9.50 to €10 per 250 g bag, an average increase of about 5% across its range, while drink prices in its bars stay as they are for now.9

Sources

  1. 11 Kaffeeröstereien, die ihr kennen solltet, Mit Vergnügen Köln, accessed October 2026
  2. Kaffee statt Kölsch (May 2023), KölnTourismus Magazin, accessed October 2026
  3. zwoo kaffeeröster: Kaffeebars, Kaffeeschule und Rösterei, zwoo Kaffeeröster, accessed October 2026
  4. Benson Coffee: Über uns, Store & Education, Benson Coffee, accessed October 2026
  5. Kaffeeprinzen: Ehrliches Rösthandwerk seit 2008, Kaffeeprinzen, accessed October 2026
  6. Holm Kaffeerösterei: Café in Köln, Holm Kaffeerösterei, accessed October 2026
  7. blooming roastery & coffee-bar, blooming coffee, accessed October 2026
  8. meine ecke coffee: Speisekarte (October 2026), meine ecke specialty coffee, accessed October 2026
  9. Wir passen unsere Preise an (November 2026), zwoo Kaffeeröster, accessed October 2026
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By area: Agnesviertel & Eigelstein Altstadt Belgisches Viertel Zülpicher Viertel Südstadt Ehrenfeld Nippes Sülz & Klettenberg

FAQ

Specialty coffee in Cologne: questions

Where is the specialty coffee in Cologne concentrated?

Mostly in Ehrenfeld. Van Dyck and zwoo have bars on Körnerstraße, at numbers 43 and 73, Benson Coffee is on Eichendorffstraße, and Coffee Lab and Cologne’s Roastery are on Venloer Straße. The Südstadt comes next, with Ernst on Bonner Straße and Kaffeeprinzen at Martinsfeld in the Pantaleonsviertel.

Which Cologne coffee roaster has won the German roasting championship?

Benjamin Pozsgai of Benson Coffee at Eichendorffstraße 49 in Ehrenfeld won the German roasting championship in 2016 and 2019. He also finished third at the World Coffee Roasting Championship in 2017 and fourth in 2019. The shop is a member of the Specialty Coffee Association.

How much does a flat white cost at a specialty café in Cologne in 2026?

In October 2026 Meine Ecke Specialty Coffee near Neumarkt charged €4.50 for a flat white, €3.50 for a cappuccino and €5.90 for a V60 hand brew. For beans, zwoo’s Elefant and Nashorn house coffees cost €10 per 250 g bag from November 2026.

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