Legend has it that when the Turks besieged Vienna in 1683, they brought two things to Austria that have had a lasting influence on breakfast to this day: The crescent-shaped croissant and coffee. How it actually happened that the exotic drink made its way from the growing regions overseas to the German-speaking world is probably no longer clear, but it was probably not sacks full of coffee beans left behind on the battlefield outside Vienna. This urban legend can probably be traced back to the late 17th century, when the coffee bean began to establish itself as a luxury food for the political and economic elite in Europe. It was the era of the great trading companies, the first stock exchanges and the philosophers, legal scholars and economists of the early Enlightenment, in which the lucrative overseas trade brought the coffee bean and the economic sectors that developed from it to the cities of Europe. As part of the Habsburg Empire and a trading city, Innsbruck had been part of imperial business since the 16th century. Long-distance trade was an integral part of the economy. Thanks to the Inn Bridge and its favourable position, the city had been integrated into European networks since the 12th century. The city's wealthy elite, who also had political influence through the city council, were largely drawn from the merchant class.

At the beginning of the 18th century, coffee appeared in Innsbruck's legislation for the first time, which is a strong indication that it was crossing the threshold of importance within the city. In 1713, the city council decided to authorise the purchase of coffee exclusively in pharmacies. Similar to Red Bull In the 1990s, the exotic drink was suspected of being disreputable. As demand increased in the climate of enlightenment during the time of Emperor Joseph II and the luxury drink became more and more popular in society, the regulations were relaxed. However, coffee was still not an everyday drink, but an exclusive and expensive pleasure for eccentric elites. Speciality shops, spice and food shops began to sell coffee. The still existing Innsbruck coffee brand Nosko claims the title of the city's oldest roastery as the successor to Josef Ulrich Müller's Spezerei in Seilergasse 18, which opened in 1751. Also Unterberger&Comp colonial goods, Innsbruck's second coffee roastery, which still exists today, began as a speciality shop. Jakob Fischnaller took over a shop that had been located in the historic city centre since 1660, where he sold coffee from 1768.

The bean's triumphal march began with the first coffee cafés at the end of the 1750s. The first establishments still had little to do with the Viennese coffee house culture that is known worldwide today. In 1793, the Cafe Katzung opened its doors to the wealthy bourgeoisie, who began to conquer the public space for themselves with billiard tables and newspaper stands. 50 years later, there were already 8 coffee houses in little Innsbruck. Unlike traditional inns, they symbolised a new, urban and enlightened lifestyle, a distinguishing feature between the city and the surrounding area. For a long time, wine and beer had been the everyday drinks of the masses. Even if wine was not particularly strong in the Middle Ages, it did dull the senses. Spirits were popular among the working class, and home-distilled schnapps was both popular and problematic in the countryside. Those who took care of themselves stayed away from it. Coffee, on the other hand, made people alert and productive and favoured the new virtues of industriousness and hard work. In cities like Innsbruck, the willing subject was increasingly replaced by the critical, newspaper-reading citizen. By savouring the expensive colonial goods, connoisseurs who knew how to distinguish the cheap brew, mixed with all kinds of fillers, from real coffee beans and could afford it, were able to distinguish themselves from the lower classes. Pofl stand out. When Napoleon banned the import of coffee in the territories under his control in 1810 in order to weaken the British economy, which was based on long-distance trade, there were fierce protests throughout Europe. Fig and chicory coffee as a substitute product was not particularly popular with the general public, as would later be the case during the world wars.

The colonial goods trade, which linked the exploitative business models of African coffee plantations, American tobacco plantations and South American fruit plantations with the Alps, reached a high point in Innsbruck, as in the entire German-speaking region, from the end of the 19th century, when the European powers' race for Africa entered the home straight. In 1900, there were around 40 colonial goods traders in Innsbruck. These were mostly speciality shops and general merchants who sold various, usually expensive goods from all over the world. Above all, luxury goods such as rum, tobacco, cocoa, tea and coffee or exotic fruits such as bananas were sold as colonial goods to the wealthy Innsbruck bourgeoisie. From this time onwards, the Viennese coffee house culture with all its peculiarities finally became the standard for the bourgeois culture of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Monarchy. No matter where you were between Innsbruck in the west and Czernowitz in the east of the vast empire, you could be sure of finding a railway station, an appropriate hotel and a coffee house with German-speaking staff and a similar menu and furnishings. Coffee houses, unlike traditional inns, were places where not only the aristocracy and new elites, but also men and women, albeit often in separate areas as in the Cafe Munding, could spend time.

Neither coffee house culture nor colonial goods shops disappeared from everyday life in the Republic of Austria with the caesura of the First World War and the end of the monarchy. In the 1930s, around 60 of these shops were located in Innsbruck. There were still no supermarkets with the large product ranges of today, and purchases were still made at market stalls or in small shops. The „Purchasing Association of Specie and Colonial Goods Wholesalers North Tyrol Ges.m.b.H“. It was only after the Second World War that the term "Kolonialwaren" disappeared from the city's trade directories and was replaced by the terms "Kaffeerösterei" and "Fruchtimport". Not only the Viennese coffee house culture has come to stay. Katzung, Munding and Central are still some of the oldest of their kind in Innsbruck. The Ischia company has been selling exotic fruits in the city since 1884 and is still prominently represented in the cityscape today with its striking logo on the company building next to the new city library. A brass sign at Herzog-Friedrich-Straße 26 and a large version of the logo with the merchant ship on the main traffic artery Egger-Lienz-Straße near Westbahnhof bear witness to the presence of the Unterberger brand. The logo of Praxmarer Kaffee, which shows a kneeling Moor with an offered cup on a façade in Amraserstraße, is much more conflict-laden. The traditional company itself no longer exists, but there is still a trade in tropical fruit with the same name, Praxmarer Obst.