1959

Coffee Roaster

Roveredo, undated

«We drink it three times a day and it seems to us that we can hardly live without it anymore», the Union dals Grischs described coffee consumption in Graubünden in 1926. However, usually this did not mean pure coffee. As a rule, cheaper additives such as chicory, lupines, acorns or grain were added. It was roasted at home often at the open fireplace with simple roasters such as our object.

Indeed, people from Graubünden opened the first coffee houses in Europe in Venice as early as the 17th century. For Chur, a shop selling coffee is first documented in 1772. However, pure coffee remained, up until the second half of the 20th century, a luxury product that broad social classes could hardly afford.