Raised in a small town in Germany’s Lower Rhine region, the backdrop for Barn owner Ralf Rueller’s younger years was bucolic—milk cows in verdant fields, a vegetable-producing backyard garden and a mother who loved spending time in the kitchen preparing fresh-baked breads and cakes. When Rueller relocated to Berlin, the creation of The Barn—a Mitte-based boutique coffee shop that places a premium on food-ethics and superior quality—was already foretold.

Coffee, the miracle brew that routs out both bad dreams and hangovers from the night before, is The Barn’s forte, and Illy-brand espresso it is not. The pillars of a fine cup are traceability and taste: organic beans cultivated by farmers paid handsomely for their harvest as well as micro-roasting and hand-brewing techniques executed with exacting care.

The single-origin beans are roasted in Copenhagen, London, Oslo and Portland; and The Barn also boasts a hand-crafted Italian espresso machine; baristas schooled in the highest-caliber international cupping techniques; and even fresh milk from a small farm on the outskirts of Berlin—they deliver their product to The Barn within 24-hours of being pulled from the cow’s udder. Enjoy your coffee drink with an in-house baked good, all of which are prepared according to Rueller’s mother’s recipes, which she wrote down in old-fashioned cursive to preserve with her family before her passing.