As of: April 15, 2024 7:30 p.m
In 1866, Johann Joachim Darboven founded his company in Hamburg – the first to ship roasted coffee in bags and sell sugar in cubes. Albert Darboven is the fourth generation to run the company. He was now 88 years old.
With the right instinct and a healthy dose of pioneering spirit, a young businessman founded a company in the mid-19th century that is now one of the oldest German family businesses. On March 21, 1866, Johann Joachim Darboven opened his shop in Hamburg, where he sold milk, bread, colonial goods and initially unroasted coffee beans.
Coffee in bags – sugar in cubes
With a simple idea, Johann Joachim Darboven revolutionized the coffee trade more than 150 years ago.
Officially dubbed the “spice trade”, Darboven revolutionized the coffee trade with his business a short time later. His idea: to deliver roasted and bagged coffee to households in Hamburg and the surrounding area. He also cuts sugar loaves into cubes and delivers them directly. His calculations work out. The Hanseatic housewives are enthusiastically accepting this new postal service.
Just three years later, the JJ Darboven company has 144 different types of coffee on offer. Exhibited in 1869 at the first International Horticultural Exhibition in Hamburg, it received the silver medal for its extensive range.
With “Muckefuck” through the war years
After the company founder’s death in 1909, his sons Arthur and Caesar continued to run the JJ Darboven company. The First World War becomes a test for the family’s ingenuity. Green coffee is in short supply, but customers should not have to go without their usual coffee enjoyment. A mixture of chicory, grain, sugar beet pulp, milo grain and roasted figs provides a tasty solution to the problem. Literally the name: Muckefuck.
The secret of success: stomach-friendly
At the end of the 1920s, a new invention gave JJ Darboven his final breakthrough on the coffee market. After countless experiments in the laboratory, Arthur Darboven and Professor Karl Lendrich from the Hygienic Institute in Hamburg have developed a patented process that makes coffee stomach-friendly without depriving it of the stimulating caffeine. The “Idee” trademark, which was born in 1915, is now becoming the new “Idee” coffee.
It becomes a bestseller so quickly that the company has to expand its production facility. The catering industry is also supplied with coffee at this time. It is considered fashionable to meet for coffee. Almost every second restaurant in Hamburg serves coffee from Darboven. The subsidiary Kaffee Darboven is created, which is exclusively responsible for the catering sector.
Koff replaces “Idea” coffee
During the Second World War, coffee was in short supply.
But the Second World War plunges the company into another crisis. On the night of July 28, 1943, the Hammerbrook district was almost completely destroyed and the buildings on the Darboven site burned out. The archive and the entire customer file go up in flames. This is a catastrophe for the company, which depends on customer data for shipping. In addition, even during these war years, the raw material coffee was valuable and difficult to obtain.
The experiences with the coffee substitute mixture from the First World War are now vital to JJ Darboven’s survival. Necessity becomes a virtue. The advertising slogan “As long as you lack idea coffee, take Koff, then you have made a good choice” is intended to continue to bind customers to the company. And it works, the coffee roaster can maneuver his way through the war years. After the currency reform in 1948, coffee imports were possible again and JJ Darboven supplied the well-known varieties.
Searching for heirs in the coffee dynasty
Albert Darboven was adopted by his uncle Arthur in 1953 and later succeeded him in the company.
The upswing of the post-war years also allowed JJ Darboven to flourish. The only thing missing is a legacy that can lead the company into the next generation. Therefore, in 1953, the childless company boss Arthur Darboven adopted his wife’s 17-year-old nephew – Albert Hopusch, whose father had died.
It’s clear from the start: Albert will one day be in charge of the company’s business. And of course he has to learn the coffee trade from scratch. Initially not in the family business, but with the Hamburg coffee importer Bernhard Rothfos. There he is an apprentice like everyone else. He even has to earn his spurs as a “showman” unloading ships in the free port. After his training, he goes to Costa Rica and El Salvador for his teacher to gain experience as a buyer on the coffee plantations.
Bon vivant with prison experience
But before he starts his home business, he has completely different experiences in Central America. In Costa Rica, the 22-year-old ends up in prison for one night because he was quite drunk and shot bottles behind a bar with his revolver during a pub crawl with a friend. Only his connections at the top save him from a six-week stay in prison. The President of Costa Rica personally calls the judge to ensure that Albert and his friend are released the next day.
In 1973 Albert Darboven married Princess of Anhalt Edda. Here is a photo from 1975.
Albert is extremely embarrassed by this matter, especially because he is about to ask for the hand of the daughter of a coffee baron from El Salvador. Despite violent protests from her family, who had Jewish roots and suffered under the Hitler regime, Albert married Inés Alicia de Sola Oppenheimer in 1961. Three years later, their son Arthur Ernesto was born. But the marriage was ill-fated and ended in divorce in 1973. In the same year, Albert Darboven married his current wife Edda, née Princess of Anhalt.
A face for coffee
From 1987 onwards, Albert Darboven personally advertised his coffee on television.
From 1960 onwards, Albert was co-owner of the family business alongside his cousin Herbert Darboven and became the best-known face in the coffee industry. At the end of the 1980s, he successfully continued what his uncle Nikolaus had already started in 1963: personal television advertising. So the company boss with Hanseatic charm naturally comes to the house for an older lady’s birthday: “Here you go, your favorite coffee,” he says to the woman, who is very happy about the unexpected visit. She also promptly assures him that she has been drinking this coffee for 40 years. “Idea coffee is so easy to digest, with and without caffeine.”
Darboven’s second passion is equestrian sports
Albert Darboven is a frequently seen guest at equestrian events.
In addition to coffee, equestrian sports is his second passion. Albert Darboven has been running his “Idee” stud farm in Hamburg-Rissen since the late 1970s. His greatest success was winning the German Derby in 1992 with the horse “King of Spades”. Darboven is one of the largest sponsors in German horse racing. Because no one else could be found to save this prestigious horse race for the city of Hamburg, he stepped in as a “savior” in 2009. In 2010, 2011 and 2014 he repeated his financial commitment. Darboven was also a successful polo player for over 40 years – until 2003.
Darboven’s successor open after court dispute
Albert Darboven, who his friends also call Atti or Addi, is now in the fourth generation to run the fifth largest German coffee roasting company and its approximately 900 employees. His successor is currently unclear: after disputes with his son Arthur Ernesto over the company’s strategic direction, he left the company in 2008, but is now back on the supervisory board. Albert Darboven’s plan to adopt the coffee heir Andreas Jacobs and thereby make him the sole heir to the company failed in court in 2019. Even in his old age, he still acts as chairman and managing director of the company. He will be 88 years old on April 15, 2024.
Further information
On March 15, 1949, Max Herz and Carl Tchilling-Hiryan founded a roasted coffee company in Hamburg. Her revolutionary idea: coffee by mail. more
One person – one vision, that’s how many founder stories begin: traditional companies that are known far beyond Northern Germany’s borders. more
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Our story | April 13, 2024 | 12:00 o’clock