buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

Patrick Berger is a hugger. Wearing a Steve Zissou-like red beanie, the owner of Buena Vida Coffee Club is a life-size German Tigger, bouncy and affectionate. He zips around his Potsdam cafe, greeting friends, joking with his baristas. A sign above the wooden counter says โ€œBe Nice or Go Away,โ€ and the rest of the cafe is decked out in pro-coffee stickers and posters like a teenagerโ€™s bedroom. Indeed, Bergerโ€™s enthusiasm is infectious. After 18ย months, Buena Vida has established itself as the specialty-coffee shop and roastery in Potsdam. The cafe is bustling.

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

Potsdam is 45 minutes west of Berlin by train. Arriving there from the German capital is something of a shock: Potsdam is a pretty city, full of bakeries, palaces, and older folksย walking pampered pooches. It is very clean. People smile more here. A popular day trip for Berliners and tourists young and old, the city has two lives, functioning as both a university town and a sort of Prussian museum. Most visitors come to tour the famous, glowing-yellow Sanssouci summer palace and Versailles-like formal gardens, the largest World Heritage Site in Germany. For centuries, the city was home to Prussian royalty and German kings, until 1918. Bookending that traumatic chapter of German history, in 1945 Potsdam was also the location of the Potsdam Conference, where the Allied powers outlined the future of Germany and postwar Europe, and the city fell under Communist rule.

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

Brandenburg-born Patrick Berger moved to Potsdam as a university student, during which time he tumbled down the Third Wave-coffee rabbit hole. โ€œFive years ago, a friend took me along and I had my first really, really good cappuccino(s) at Bonanza Coffeeย and Godshot [in Berlin]. I expected the bitter soup I always got at my grandmotherโ€™s. In that moment, it was not love at first sight, but step by step I found my way in.โ€

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

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While working at Godshot and at another Potsdam cafe, Berger began DIY roasting in his living room. โ€œI bought a small roaster, a Behmor, and I started buying green coffee.โ€ He taught himself. โ€œThe first 20ย million times it was just like burnt shit, but it improved, and then it was like, โ€˜Hey, you can sell that.โ€™ From there, the idea that I wanted to have my own roastery grew, and here I am.โ€

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

Though Berger professesย he still has much to learn, his Buena Vida roasts have been gaining attention. Keen to lead Potsdam coffee drinkers beyond the dark Italian roasts favored in Germany, his initial efforts were polarizing: โ€œThe first coffee I was serving was a big, fruity, blueberry natural, so a lot of customers were like, โ€˜Thatโ€™s not coffee, what the hell is that?โ€™ โ€ But some customers were coming back three, four, even five times a day.

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

From the cafeโ€™s La Marzocco Strada MP machine, I tried a very fine double espresso from the roast Bergerโ€™s proudest of: a single-origin Papua New Guinea Sigri that bursts with the sweetness of marzipan, the punch of ripe cherries, and the creaminess of almonds. When hisย Sigri won best espresso at a small competition last May against Hamburg heavyweights like Playground Coffee, Berger was over the moon. โ€œIt was the first espresso Iโ€™d ever roasted on my own and I was completely unsure if Iโ€™d done okayโ€”and then we won!โ€

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

Buoyed by the affirmation of his peers, heโ€™s kept trucking away on his own path. โ€œI donโ€™t want to be as light-roasted or Scandinavian as some of the Berlin roasters. My favorite roaster in the world is Stumptown. I love them, and what they try to roast is, for me, the perfect way: to find the sweet spot; to have not just the fruity notes or the bitter notes, but that spot where you have it all in one bean.โ€

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

The Buena Vida roastery is situated 10 kilometers outside Potsdam, while the cafe sits on a corner ofย the cobbled main street, Brandenburger Strasse, inย the cityโ€™s Dutch quarter, a picturesque neighborhood built in the 1700s. The cafe itself is part of a red-brick building that stretches across the block, perhaps once home to a Dutch army general, suggests Berger. Its historic status restricted renovations to the space, but invited other sweet dรฉcor features: brass coat hooks line the walls, and a tap juts out from the wooden counter, below the brew bar (which also offersย AeroPress and pour-over options). Windows look onto a square with a Soviet cemetery and St. Peter and Paul Catholic church. Wooden tables and stools line the walls, and a long, communal table occupies the center, welcoming large parties or, more commonly, encouraging small groupsย to buddy up.

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

This growing sense of community is one of the reasons Bergerโ€™s so passionate about hisย business, and his city. โ€œPotsdam is a lot quieter than Berlin, a lot more personal. In Berlin, a lot of things just happen on the surface. Here, so often it [gets]ย so personal, even with small talk. If you meet someone in Potsdam, you can definitely meet them again. I guess thatโ€™s what I love most. You have to be yourself, because itโ€™s too small to wear a mask; thereโ€™s no room for theater. We have a very close relationship with a lot of our customers. Good friends are sitting at the table, and they come visit every single day.โ€ For a killer coffee and, no doubt, a hug.

buena vida coffee club potsdam berlin germany europe roaster cafe sprudge

Buena Vida Coffee Club is located at Am Bassin 7, 14467 Potsdam, Germany. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebookย and Instagram.

Annabel Brady-Brownย is a freelance journalist based in Berlin, writing for ExBerliner and more. Read more Annabel Brady-Brown on Sprudge.

Photos by Septimus Brope.

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