Wiener Kaffeehauspfeife

Wiener Kaffeehauspfeife, known in Turkish as the Vienna coffeehouse pipe, is not the mark of a single manufacturer but the name of a pipe type that became familiar in nineteenth-century Vienna. It takes its name from being served to guests in coffeehouses. It differs from the classic single-piece cast clay pipe types: here only the bowl is made of clay, the stem is wood, and the mouthpiece is most often horn. This three-material, dismountable construction defines both the type's appearance and how it was used.

Structure and Appearance

The bowl is prepared from pipe clay that whitens on firing, and is left unglazed. Its tall, slender, six-sided body makes it recognizable even from a distance — the main feature that lets collectors identify the type. Because clay lends itself to surface decoration, most bowls are ornamented. Decorations include floral and vase motifs, spiraling plant lines, geometric arrangements, and, in some examples, human figures.

The stem is unusually long and made of cherry or sour cherry wood. The length helps the smoke cool before reaching the mouth, and also makes the pipe suited to being smoked seated rather than carried upright. The preference for horn in the mouthpiece was standard for the 19th century; a comparison of materials appears in the mouthpiece materials entry.

Where They Were Made

Aimed at the Austro-Hungarian market, these bowls were not made in Vienna but in Germany, in the Westerwald region southeast of Cologne. The region had been a center of clay pipe workshops for centuries, and production there continued well into the 20th century. To secure the raw material for the stems, records show cherry trees were planted at Theresienfeld in Lower Austria, south of Vienna.

Its Place in the Coffeehouse

By the end of the 18th century, some Viennese coffeehouses had set aside separate rooms for smokers. There, the pipe was a service the establishment provided: the guest paid only for the tobacco, and could use the pipe for the duration of one fill either free of charge or for a small fee. Once the smoke was finished, the pipe was taken apart, cleaned by the coffeehouse attendant, and handed to the next guest. It is said that, out of hygiene concerns, the mouthpiece was renewed each time, often fitted with a simple goose-quill piece for the purpose; this detail rests only on anecdote.

The lending pipe was not unique to Vienna; in England, clay pipes were likewise handed out for a small fee in the smoking rooms called tabagies. In Vienna, the Neuner family's coffeehouse — known as the Silbernes Kaffeehaus for its silver fittings and open until 1855 — was among the best-known examples of this setting; Nikolaus Lenau and Franz Grillparzer were among its regulars. It is said that both writers smoked borrowed pipes there, though this detail has not been confirmed by independent records. This pairing of coffeehouse and pipe is one of the rare examples in the world history of the pipe that can be tied to a single city.

The Type's End

As the custom of the lending pipe faded, the type fell out of favor along with it; the spread of briar pipes over the same period must have made it easier for the fragile clay bowl to be replaced. Today these pipes appear as museum and collection pieces; examples dated to the 19th century are held in the JTI/Austria Tabak tobacco collection in Vienna. Since they carry no brand stamp and the workshop that produced them can often not be determined, they are counted as a typical example of production traditions of uncertain identity.