Specialty coffee in Romania

Specialty coffee in Romania dates from the late 2000s, and Bucharest now has more specialty cafés per inhabitant than Berlin or Copenhagen. The foundations were laid around 2008, when the national SCA chapter, Barista School Romania and the Bucharest Coffee Festival all started. Early roasters and cafés such as Coftale, Origo, Meron, Sloane Coffee, BOB Coffee Lab, MABÓ and Two Minutes introduced single origins and filter brewing to a market used to dark Turkish-style coffee with milk and sugar. Meron, founded in Cluj-Napoca around 2015, began roasting in 2019 and grew into a national chain.

Bucharest holds the largest share of cafés and roasters, and Cluj-Napoca has a large, roaster-dense scene for its size. Brașov stands out with an unusually high number of roasters, while Constanța, Timișoara, Iași, Oradea and Sibiu each have established local scenes. Smaller cities such as Craiova, Târgu Mureș and Satu Mare have a few specialty bars each.

Roasters that shape Romanian taste include Meron, BOB Coffee Lab, 20grams Coffee Roasters, 112 Coffee Roastery, Bozy Coffee Roasters and Capuchin Coffee Roasters. The competition scene is active, with the Slow Coffee Festival hosting the national AeroPress Championship. Expect espresso and filter on most menus, and a clientele that increasingly asks about origin and processing.