Station 15 - The Arabian Coffee Tree

Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum has been serving coffee since 1711. Both café and restaurant to this day, it now also houses a museum devoted to the drink from which it takes its name. The café established itself early on as the favoured meeting-place for artists, musicians, writers and academics, offering a billiard table, sofas, piano and a range of newspapers. The Coffe Baum's most noted regular was Robert Schumann who, from 1833-40, made it to something of a second home. Schumann was editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal of Music), the radically progressive organ of the so-called Davidsbündler (League of David). This company of friends and colleagues of Schumann (including Friedrich Wieck, Ernst August Ortlepp, Ludwig Schunke, Johann Peter Lyser and Karl Herloßsohn) would meet at the “Schumann-Tisch” (Schumann Table) in the front left room of the Coffe Baum to debate the topical issues of contemporary music and art. Touring musicians of note passing through Leipzig were also made welcome at the Schumann-Tisch. The proprietor of the time, Max Poppe, was himself a publicist and literature collector and recognised the value of making his tavern into a magnet for the protagonists of the art world. In earlier years, Georg Philipp Telemann enjoyed the Coffe Baum's hospitality; the stream of musical patrons did not end with the Davidsbündler, the café later being frequented by Richard Wagner, Walter von Goethe, Arthur Nikisch, Karl Straube, Eugen d’Albert, Siegfried Wagner, Franz Lehár, Edvard Grieg and Günther Ramin.

Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum, Kleine Fleischergasse 4, 04109 Leipzig, Tel. 0341/ 9610060/ 61
Öffnungszeiten des Museums: täglich 11–19 Uhr
Photograph: Thilo Kühne; Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig

Internet: https://www.stadtgeschichtliches-museum-leipzig.de/en/visit/our-museums/arabian-coffee-tree-museum/
Davidsbündler
Florestan und Eusebius