Specialty Coffee in Poznań: 11 Cafes From Breakfast to Last Light

It is early, you are out of the door, and the first thing you need is not a coffee. It is breakfast. In Poznań that sends you west of the main station into Jeżyce, a district of tenement blocks and a market square, where the old zoo has lost most of its animals and kept its trees as a park.

This guide is a single day in the city, first cup to last, with eleven specialty cafes placed at the hour each one suits. Nobody drinks eleven coffees in a day, and nobody should try. Take two or three and keep the rest for the next morning. The order below follows the clock, not the map: breakfast in Jeżyce, the centre and the Old Town around midday, the afternoon in Łazarz, and a last stop out east for anyone sleeping on that side of the river.

A day like this runs on small questions. Is it open yet. Is there a seat. Is anything on filter this afternoon, or only espresso. Specialty Atlas answers them: it is a free app for iOS and Android, and every cafe below has a profile in it, with the brew methods, what the kitchen does and how far the place is from where you are standing. Download the app before the first stop, or plan the day tonight from the Poznań city page.

Early morning: eat first, in Jeżyce

Okruszki is at Zwierzyniecka 10, on the same street as the old zoo. It takes no reservations, walk-in only, and its own one-line menu is an egg drop sandwich on brioche baked on the premises, something sweet and coffee. Behind that the bar runs to V60 and Chemex, cold brew, espresso tonic, kombucha and fresh juice, with plant milk, decaf and enough seats, some of them outside, to stay a while.

trzecia kawa on Polna 1 calls itself a specialty cafe in Poznań's Jeżyce, and leaves it there. The name means "third coffee". Have it as your first: there is breakfast, lunch, pastries and matcha, and our community rates it among the better cups in the city.

Late morning: a second sitting in the centre

Later in the morning, head east into the centre for the second breakfast nobody plans and everybody has. Jeżyce and the centre sit side by side, so this is a short tram ride or a walk, not a trip.

Cafe Młyńska is at Młyńska 12, near plac Cyryla Ratajskiego. It tells you to expect French inspiration on the plates and in the decor, serves breakfast and lunch, and has a courtyard it describes as elegant enough for a business meeting. Cakes, pastries and matcha sit next to the espresso.

Blask on Gwarna 10 keeps its own description to three lines: a specialty cafe in the centre of Poznań, cakes and bakes of its own, and coffee beans to take home. Breakfast and matcha are on too. If you want a bag for the hotel room or the train home, this is the stop for it.

Midday: a table, a socket, the wifi password

At noon the mechanical goats on the town hall butt heads for the crowd on the Stary Rynek. They do it every day, so they can wait. For the middle of the day you want a table. Ratajczaka is one of the centre's shopping streets, and two of the day's cafes share it.

Stragan Kawiarnia at Ratajczaka 31 is the place to set up. By its own account it is open every day from eight in the morning to nine at night, with specialty coffee, cakes and breakfast all day. The app lists wifi, power outlets, laptops welcome and wheelchair access, and a bar with more ways to brew than most: AeroPress, syphon, V60 and Chemex, cold brew and espresso tonic, with decaf and bags of coffee to take away.

Body Balance specialty coffee & people is on the same street, at Ratajczaka 44. The app knows it for espresso and milk drinks and not much else yet, so treat it as the quick milk coffee between two calls.

Early afternoon: filter by the Old Market

Now go and see the goats, and stay in the Old Town for the first slow cup of the day. The Stary Rynek is the square with the Renaissance town hall in the middle and the rows of narrow, painted merchants' houses beside it.

Filter is at Zamkowa 3, the short street that leads off the Stary Rynek towards the Royal Castle. It does what the name says, V60 and Chemex, with cold brew, tea, matcha and plant milk beside the espresso. Take a slice of cake and do not hurry: the afternoon is for this.

Later afternoon: the slow bars of Łazarz

Łazarz is on the far side of the railway, south-west of the main station: tenement streets around a market square, with trams running down Głogowska. Three of the day's stops are here, so the rest of the day needs no map. It is a neighbourhood people live in rather than visit, which suits a slow afternoon.

KANAŁ kawiarnia at Kanałowa 15 announced itself in two words: KANAŁ is open. Inside there is V60 and Chemex, cold brew and tea, plant milk, cake, wifi and room for a laptop, and the dog can come too.

Pączuś i Kawusia sits on the market square itself, at rynek Łazarski 8. The name is a pair of diminutives, a little doughnut and a little coffee, and the cafe promises real, hand-made doughnuts and bakes from the best ingredients, served with specialty coffee. There is filter here as well as espresso, plenty of seats, and dogs are welcome.

Evening: the last cup, or a beer instead

Stay in Łazarz for the first of the evening's two stops, and choose the second by where you are sleeping.

Dżungla Cafe at Głogowska 32 describes itself as a place with a passion for plants, specialty coffee, a beer and people, in that order. As the light goes, the order can change. Breakfast, pastries and matcha are on earlier in the day, and our community rates it as highly as any cafe in Poznań.

Mikroklimat Poznań is a ride out, at Katowicka 67d among the housing estates east of the Warta. Rataje is where a large part of Poznań lives, in blocks built through the 1970s and 1980s, and few visitors ever see it. It sums itself up as bakes, breakfasts, coffee, people and atmosphere, with a few seats inside, some outside, a corner for children and room for a dog. If your bed for the night is on that side of the river, it is the last stop on the way home.

Put the map in your pocket

A day on paper stays fixed. The day you get does not: a cafe closes early, a bar changes its filter, it rains. Everything in this guide is in Specialty Atlas, free on iOS and Android, and the app keeps up where an article cannot:

• What is on the bar today. Current beans, with roaster, origin and process, updated by the cafes themselves.
• Sorted by distance. Every specialty cafe around you, nearest first, with its opening hours.
• Filters for the hour. Breakfast in the morning, wifi and power outlets at midday, pour-over in the afternoon, outdoor seating in the evening.
• A passport with a stamp for Poznań. Scan the QR code at the counter and the visit goes into your coffee passport.
• Beans matched to your palate. Answer a few questions once and every bean gets a score against your taste.

Download the app and open Poznań on your phone. The Poznań city page is there for planning from a laptop.

Next in the series

The series carries on through the other cities on the map, one guide at a time.

If you run a cafe in Poznań and want what is on your bar in front of the people reading this, claim your profile.

Choose tomorrow's first stop tonight, then download Specialty Atlas.