Waiters around ex Yugoslavia can tell immediately where is a person from if they ask for “deutsche“ coffee.
But, for many citizens of Podgorica, a mystery remains on how macchiato came to be ”deutsche”. This name remains a sign of recognition among citizens of Montenegro’s Capital. There are two ”origin stories”, and they are both related to deutsche mark, that was dearly loved in this region once.
First version is connected to once favorite place of meeting to many citizens of Podgorica – city tavern of Hotel Montenegro. As is customary with many words and sentences, people of Podgorica were too lazy to pronounce them in full. It was difficult to repeat several times a day ”can I have one long espresso with some foamed milk in a larger cup”. Simply, this is a mentality that transformed ”would you like to?” into ”wanna?”. So, instead of the long version, citizens from the beginning of 90s (during the inflation period) decided that it was easier to simply say ”one deutsche coffee”, because this particular coffee used to cost one deutsche mark.
No matter the course of dinar to mark, macchiato always cost one deutsche mark in the Hotel Montenegro’s coffee garden.
To be different
The setting of the second version of this origin story is located some 500 m from Hotel Montenegro, up the Freedom Street. Famous caterer in Podgorica, after having returned from working in Germany, had decided to open up a coffee shop that would soon become a cult place. He wanted to be more original than the competition, so he decided to offer macchiato under different name, and that name was ”deutsche” coffee, German coffee, in respect to the country he came back from to Montenegro.
Symbol
Whether one version is true or not, or they are both false – bears no significance. ”Deutsche” coffee had become a symbol of Podgorica. There is no citizen of this city that went somewhere and did not meet confused look of waiters when he asked for ”deutsche”, although with time the circle of those who are in the know grew. In the cities visited many times by Podgorica people, they left a mark and a knowledge of ”deutsche”. Coffee shops on sea cost, Žabljak and Kolašin, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Zlatibor etc now know what to do when someone asks for a ”deutsche” coffee.
