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The legend about Koltschitzky says that, as well as the prizes mentioned above, the king of Poland gifted him some of the goods looted in the Ottoman camp, including bags of something that has been originally taken for camel fodder. Familiar with Turkish customs, Koltschitzky immediately recognized the contents of these bags as coffee beans. So equipped, he opened the first café in Vienna, called ''Hof zur Blauen Flasche'', or the Blue Bottle House. For marketing reasons, he served his patrons in Turkish garb – perhaps the same as the one he had used to carry messages between the besieged Vienna and the camp of the allied forces. He is also credited with the idea of making coffee more palatable to Christians, unaccustomed to the bitter brew, by adding a splash of milk and honey.
But even to this legend there is a counterlegend, according to which Koltschitzky did not open the first coffeehouse in Vienna, because he had been beaten to it by three years, by an Armenian (or maybe Greek?) merchant named Johannes Diodato. That said, Koltschitzky was without a doubt one of two Poles – alongside [https://www.trzesniewski.at/shop/broetchen Franciszek Trześniewski,] author of Vienna's "unspeakably unpronounceably good" open sandwiches – who made great contributions to Vienna's culinary scene. Unless Koltschitzky was Ukrainian, that is. Or Serbian.
That's all for today, but do let me know in the comments section what you would like to read more about. Is it borscht, bagels or coffee? So long!
