You can have your favourite colour of coffee; or like Mozart did after lunch, play billiards; or play chess like the exiled Trotsky in the Café Central. I settle for people watching.

Home to the delectable Sachertorte, the 'coffeehouses' of Vienna - drenched in old-world charm and historical anecdotes - offer much more than the aromatic brew, exults Sumitra Senapaty.

A wild winter. But, the grey skies and the wind make the fires and lamp light glow all the brighter. I am in a state of exaltation. I can't quite believe I am here and, as though to put it beyond question, I often repeat 'I'm in Vienna' to myself when I wake up in the night or as I wander through the streets, when nothing flies through the air more solid than snowflakes.

Vienna is ethereal in winter and in this city of romance and culture, I thought it would be apt to sample a slice of vibrancy at some of the cream of coffeehouses. What visitors to Vienna rate as a tourist attraction, serves residents as an alternative living room and its artists and writers as a showcase institution: the Viennese coffeehouse. The city currently boasts the best part of 650 cafés, although only a hundred or so actually qualify as 'coffeehouses' in the time-honoured sense: wooden floors, velvet upholstery, marble-topped tables and black and white clad waiters whose occasional grumping is sanctioned by tradition.

The hum of the Viennese Kaffeehaus is now around me - voices talking, orders for torte and mélange, the clinking sound of spoons against the inside of cups, stirring coffee. The aroma of coffee and the fragrance of fresh pastries blend with a trace of cigarette smoke and another, mustier odour. An old definition calls a Viennese café a place 'where one goes to be alone in company'. The tradition dates back to the 17th century when, as the story goes, a Hungarian introduced a stock of coffee beans captured from the Turks. Soon, Vienna was full of coffeehouses - delectable and fashionable - where intellectuals and gentry mingled to pass the time of day. The spirit that is invoked in the Kaffeehaus is often characterised with just that simple equation: one cup of coffee equals a few hours of freedom. Here, there are a variety of possibilities to spend time. You can have your favourite colour of coffee; or like Mozart did after lunch, play billiards; or play chess like the exiled Trotsky in the Café Central. I settle for people watching: ordinary people, reading the newspapers, working on an article or novel, or simply drawing a caricature of the waiter. Each 'scene' has its own original café in Vienna. The art students, their own and the politicians, the Landtmann. In a coffeehouse, one meditates, philosophises and lazes, reads the newspaper, gossips and smooches, plays billiards or chess. Here, you can also discuss God and the world, or Viagra and much more, with perfect strangers. Yes and naturally, also enjoy the coffee and cake. In the '60s, a romantic statesman called Vienna 'an original Roman city' which was turned towards the Mediterranean Sea. Not surprisingly, I did feel that meditative calm and the aimless passing of time that I had hitherto only experienced in a Turkish café. For a visitor to Vienna, it is the most suitable place to stretch out tired feet and start the tour again, after some hot coffee.

The former writers' café, Griensteidl, is legendary especially for its old-world atmosphere. Reopened since 1990, there is hardly any well-known writer, actor or musician who hasn't visited this café. The most prominent thinkers of modern Vienna collected around the small marble tables. Many authors and actors had their own tables at the café and some even gave the café's postal address as their own. Some of them had 'table' rules, which they didn't mean seriously. Cutting nails at the table, for instance, is forbidden. Especially with one of those newfangled machines that make nails fly and land in the beer.

In the café Griensteidl, a young poet was adored for his poetry and for his youth, while games of courtship, love and jealousy were played out more openly in the Café Herrenhof, a literatencafe situated across the street from the Café Central. Franz Kafka met his letter-love, Milena, here. Milena, at that time, was still living with an East European writer in a very open marriage. I am told that the Herrenhof's alleged promiscuity can be ascribed to the influence of Sigmund Freud and his followers.

A Viennese coffeehouse is much more than just a place where one drinks coffee. Coffee may be accompanied by something from the pastry shelf - Sachertorte, apple and sweet cream strudel or the famous Viennese coffeecake. Sacher is an authentic 19th century café with paintings from that era. From this coffeehouse, the original and authentic Sachertorte began its triumphant conquest of the gourmet world. Just as it was in the old days, this landmark Viennese cake is still baked according to a secret recipe. Connoisseurs prefer to enjoy the cake in the old-world atmosphere of the Sacher café itself. Next door, in the hall and the Red Bar, there's piano music.Viennese coffeehouses are as diverse as they are plentiful - there's one on virtually every street corner. Each has its own idiosyncratic charm and style. In fact, they have only one thing in common: an old-world atmosphere you could cut with a knife. A sanctuary of contemplation and repose sheltered from the bustle of the outside world by stained glass windows. It offers a refuge to which the waiter alone has access - and that only because he brings your life-saving supply of coffee. The coffeehouses might have changed but the reasons to visit them remain the same. Even then, the Viennese café remains, truly, yesterday's world.

For the rest of the article, pick up VERVE’s January-February, 2005 issue