Long before vampires sparkled in movies, they haunted the imaginations of Eastern Europe. Villagers there had a strange but telling faith—in coffee.

When a grave was suspected of harboring a vampire, townsfolk would scatter coffee beans, seeds and other items across the soil. If the beans sprouted, it meant the creature below was stirring. But if they stayed dark and lifeless, the village could sleep easy.

This curious ritual reveals something timeless about coffee—it has always stood at the crossroads of fear and comfort, ritual and superstition. It didn’t just wake the living; it warned them of the dead.

By the 18th–19th centuries, coffee grounds and roasted beans began to appear in apotropaic folklore (that’s protective magic), particularly in areas where Ottoman coffee culture and local superstition overlapped. In some later regional stories and family “home remedies” recorded by ethnographers in the 19th century, people did sprinkle roasted beans or grounds at doorways, graves, or under beds to “bind restless spirits” — though these accounts are much rarer and not central vampire lore.

So, while coffee wasn’t a mainstream vampire deterrent like garlic or iron, it did symbolically represent life, warmth, and warding off evil — making it believable enough for your One Minute Pour as a folkloric fusion of coffee superstition and vampire myth.

So next time you pour your morning cup, take a moment to appreciate it. Somewhere in history, your coffee was more than a pick-me-up—it was protection.