WHAT IS
CAFE FREI?
“A special journey into the world of coffee!”
Our guests get the chance to “taste” the world. They can go on an exciting taste journey on five continents of the world. Our drinks are always made from freshly roasted, repeatedly hand-sorted Arabica plantation coffee rarities. We offer seventy kinds of coffee drinks to our guests, because all the major “coffee kitchens” (Italian, French, Japanese, Arabic, American, Latin) can be found at Cafe Frei.
NOT “JUST” COFFEE…
Most of our coffees can be requested decaffeinated, without sweetening and with a wide variety of milk alternatives. In addition to coffees, we offer a large selection of premium quality loose teas, fruit and spice infusions. Many of our hot chocolates have their own fan base. For the hotter days − or just for a heavenly thirst quencher − we have iced coffees and teas, as well as homemade lemonades and shakes. We also offer snacks with our beverages: a rich selection of bakery products, pastries, sandwiches and our special savoury snacks.
WE STIMULATE ALL THE
FIVE SENSES
“Authentic coffee experience”
Taste, smell, touch, sight, sound: with the help of these we create a natural and sophisticated environment for our guests, which makes CAFE FREI coffee shops a captivating meeting place.
OUR STORY
CAFE FREI was founded by two friends: Novelist, former TV personality and globetrotter Tamás Frei has visited more than 150 countries in recent decades. He is passionate about coffee and everything connected to it. With his more than 30-year experience, economist and food industry entrepreneur Tamás Langár supports the operation of the network from the business side. By today, we have become the largest coffee shop chain in the country.
2007 OPENING THE FIRST CAFE FREI
2008 OPENING OUR OWN ROASTERY AND PACKAGING FACTORY, AS WELL AS OUR FIRST FRANCHISE COFFEE SHOP
2010 OPENING OUR FROZEN BAKERY AND CONFECTIONARY PRODUCTION FACTORY, AND EXPANDING OUR FREEZING CAPACITY TO 250 PALETTES
2012 OPENING THE TENTH CAFE FREI COFFEE SHOPS
2013 OPENING THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CAFE FREI COFFEE SHOPS IN ROMANIA
2019 65 CAFE FREI COFFEE SHOPS IN 7 COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD
OUR PHILOSOPHY
"Top quality at unbeatable prices"
Over the past decades Tamás Frei has visited virtually every major coffee growing region of the world. Eventually, with the help of Italian coffee guru Marco Cremonese, together with the leading barista and master roaster of Cafe Frei, and of course the local producers, a special selection of bean coffees has been created (from nearly twenty countries from three continents) which is the base of our seventy coffee drinks. Followed from shrub to cup, from a verified source, always freshly roasted, prepared using authentic recipes.
CAFE FREI's business policy is to offer top-quality products to its customers − at unbeatable prices. We do not want to be the cheapest on the market, but would like to be the best in terms of value for money in all our product segments.
ARABICA COFFEE
“The specialist of plantation coffee rarities”
Our coffees, which are hand-picked and hand-sorted bean by bean, are imported from the world’s highest quality Arabica plantations. We know almost every producer personally and we only buy green coffee of proven origin from a verified source. We strive to bring more and more organic coffees to our roastery in Hungary to be used in our drinks, leaving out the middlemen and their profits, and saving additional costs for our customers as well.
WE ARE PROUD THAT WE…
ROAST OUR COFFFE IN HUNGARY
PACKAGE OUR PRODUCTS IN HUNGARY
PROVIDE JOBS TO HUNGARIANS
CONSTANT
RENEWAL
„Proudly Hungarian”
Our goal is continuous product development and tracking consumer demand, which we ensure by publishing a coffee selection magazine of our own design, updated every two months, and our newly developed “adventurer’s coffee” and “new wave coffee” offers, renewed every other month.
TRADING WITH CONSCIENCE
Cafe Frei’s core philosophy is to try to eliminate the middlemen wherever we can. We strive to be more affordable, therefore we don’t make our customers pay the profit of foreign and Hungarian middlemen. We buy most of our raw materials directly from producers, in Hungary as well as abroad. This is what we mean by Trading With Conscience.
“There are three ways to buy coffee in Africa, or from Africa: directly from the grower, on the plantations, which requires a lot of energy, conveniently, from so-called Cooperatives, which are the wholesale associations of farmers, or here in Europe, from buyers who use high margins and never set foot in a plantation in Africa. It's like buying wine in Hungary. You can buy it directly from the vine-grower at a lower price than the one traders offer in the shops. Vine-growers also make a better deal with us, as we share what would be the reseller's margin, so they are paid more compared to selling to the traders.“
Tamás Frei
For Cafe Frei, Trading with Conscience means more than Fair Trade which only covers the relationship between the first world and the products of the third world. This is because we want to be fair not only to the third world, but also to our own customers, and not to burden them with the profits of the middlemen.
When explaining our business policy, this is the reason why we use the expression “Trading with Conscience” and not “Fair Trade”.
PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT
Our company is also committed to protecting the environment. Wherever we can, we use recycled paper and packaging materials, and we aim to purchase more and more organic products with EU certification. Cafe Frei supports the goal of the Rainforest Alliance, the protection of rainforests, and also aims to offer plantation coffee specialities made from Fair Trade coffees to its customers. 90 percent of the coffees we offer have some form of international environmental certification.