Coffee and Reykja

When we went to Iceland last March, from what I had read from all the guides, I expected Reykjavik to be a coffee heaven. ""People run on coffee"... "No one really drinks tea"... "There is a coffee machine in every shop and customers can have a cup of coffee totally free"... What else one can ask for?

And yes, there are coffee machines pretty much everywhere we went, however, those were vending machines producing horrible brew, a cross between instant coffee and dishwater. It is free, but I would not drink it even if I was paid to. So, instead of coffee paradise we faced severe coffee famine.

To be fair, to say that one can not get a decent cup of coffee in Reykjavik would be a lie. There are few places well worth of visit, I particularly liked "Mocha" for design and cakes and "Kaffitar" (icelandic version of "Starbucks") for home away from home feel.

Most of the year it is cold and dark in Iceland and therefore interior design of many small funky coffee places tends to be quite up beat and very colorful, which I really liked. This Scandinavian gem is also quite progressive in terms of technology - wherever you go, Wi-Fi is free and you don't have to have any cash on you at all - cards are accepted everywhere.

In "Kaffitar" we had very nice cappuccino and I bought 2 bags of beans to try - Colombia and Espresso. Design of the bags was beyond cool - witty, colorful and with traditional symbols of Reykjavik. Both coffees weren't great, unfortunately. Very watery, under roasted and far too sour.  I think, "Kaffitar" know their customer very well and cater for their palate, brought up on doubtful brew from vending machines, therefore offering something more intense, might not have met a great response.

All and all, Iceland is a fantastic place to go for otherworldly landscapes, wild nature and crazy nightlife, but probably not for mind-blowing coffee experience.