Wessels Coffee @museum.de

F: For decades, there used to be a haunt for gourmets and people with a sweet tooth at Hogen Hagen number 1, right opposite the Ammerland Farmhouse. It was a coffee roasting house called "Kaffeerösterei Wessels und Co".

M: Founded in the 1930s, the roastery was famous well beyond the Ammerland region. Coffee was still a genuine luxury back then, and a lot of skill was involved in the roasting.

F: The beans were delivered from the ocean steamer straight to Bad Zwischenahn. Johanne and Carl Wessels, who'd setup the firm, bought the green coffee immediately on arrival at the port of Bremen and brought it back in company vehicles, which changed over the years. Here, the beans first had to be sorted, then roasted and ground. Those processes were what determined the quality of the coffee!

M: The coffee sorter with its conveyor belt and the gas-powered coffee roaster stood in a small annexe. The large storage containers for the beans, the scales and the electric coffee grinders were kept in the retail space on the ground floor, while the Wessels family lived on the much grander first floor.

F: After the Second World War, Karl-Heinz Wessels took over the company, expanded the product range and opened up new branches – for example on the North Sea island of Wangerooge. When a very elderly Karl-Heinz Wessels finally sold the house on Hogen Hagen, the old furnishings and equipment found a new home at the Local History Museum.