Antigua Specialty Coffee

Overview

Antigua Caffe was founded in Tirana in 1995 by Julia Bozo's family, opening Albania's first specialty coffee roastery at a time when the country's cafe culture was dominated by Italian-style dark espresso and Turkish coffee. In 2020, after returning from the United Kingdom, Julia opened Antigua Specialty Coffee — the cafe arm of the family business — and remains the only operation roasting its own specialty coffee in Albania, serving alongside European specialty roasters like Berlin's Fjord.

Known for

• Albania's first specialty coffee roastery — founded 1995 by the Bozo family
• Cafe arm Antigua Specialty Coffee opened by Julia Bozo in 2020 after returning from the UK
• The only Albanian operation roasting its own specialty coffee in-house
• Pour-over and espresso bar serving Antigua's own roasts plus Fjord (Berlin) and other European specialty roasters
• Educational mission: introducing Albanians to single origins and brewing methods beyond espresso

Why it matters

Albania has one of the highest cafe-per-capita densities in Europe — sitting in a cafe is the social default — yet Italian-influenced dark espresso dominated for thirty years and the term 'specialty coffee' is still poorly understood locally. Antigua is the cafe most often credited as Albania's third-wave starting point, and Julia Bozo is the operator who took her family's 1990s Italian-leaning roastery and pivoted it toward lighter, traceable, single-origin coffee that could stand against any European third-wave bar.

Production

destoning

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head roaster

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color sorting

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roaster machine

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filter equipment

V60 pour-over, Chemex

cupping frequency

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roastery location

Tirana, Albania

espresso equipment

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annual volume tonnes

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Café

Kompleksi Kika 2, Rruga Anton Lufi, Tiranë

Recognitions

• Recognized as Albania's first specialty (third-wave) coffee shop

Sources

• https://www.baristamagazine.com/three-shining-cafes-to-experience-in-tirana/
• https://sprudge.com/the-sprudge-guide-to-coffee-in-tirana-albania-915072.html
• https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g294446-d21272820-Reviews-Antigua_Specialty_Coffee-Tirana_Tirana_County.html
• https://albaniaturism.com/best-coffee-in-tirana/