EXBERLINER Issue 163, September 2017

BEST OF BERLIN — September 2017
Coffee
BEST CUP
ON THE RUN
BY THE EXBERLINER
EDITORIAL TEAM
You feel a little like a fish in a tank
as people gawk at you through the
thick glass. Strong wind gushes
into your face, a loud roar surrounds
you. But hey, you’re flying! Hurricane
Factory, Berlin’s first wind tunnel, uses
gusts of up to 280km/h to propel jumpsuited
thrillseekers into the air within a
5.20m-wide, 15m-high tube. Everyone,
from five-year-olds to pensioners, can
take off. Instructors give a quick intro,
accompany you into the glass tunnel
and help you soar all the way to the top.
It’s a real adrenaline rush, albeit a quick
one at just three minutes. And it comes
with a price: €79 (€99 on weekends), or
40 cents flying out of your pocket for
Extreme sports
BEST THREE-
MINUTE THRILL RIDE
every second you spend in the air. But
it’s cheaper than skydiving, and makes
for a proper day out considering you
have to trek to Schönefeld Airport, take a
bus (742) which only runs once an hour,
and then walk 500m (our tip: take your
bike on the train). There’s an S-Bahn
station nearby, but it’ll only open when
BER does, so... yeah. Someone should’ve
warned Hurricane Factory’s Slovakian
owners, who must have been banking on
the new airport being finished this year.
In the meantime, at least something’s
flying in that area... — MRK
Waßmannsdorfer Allee 3, Schönefeld,
Tue-Thu, Sun 10-22, Fri-Sat 10-24
German Palomeque
For all our eco-conscious posturing,
we Berliners still haven’t figured out an
environmentally friendly way to get our
coffee to-go. We thought we had the
answer back in January, when the Just
Swap It initiative distributed reusable
containers among a number of Berlin
cafés, to be used and returned for a
€4 deposit. But they fizzled out after
a “pilot phase”, and now the Bavarians
have stepped in. Recup, founded in
Rosenheim in December 2016, arrived
in Berlin and merged with Just Swap
It in July. Gone are the silicone-lidded
bamboo cups, replaced by easierto-manufacture
lightweight, unlidded
ones made of – gasp – plastic. On the
bright side, the Pfand is only €1, much
cheaper than other keep cups (like
The Barn’s €10.50 version), and you
get a discount on coffee when you
use it, determined by the individual
café – 10 percent off, your first coffee
free or the price of the deposit. It’s
an affordable, hassle-free experience,
but if Recup wants to succeed in
Berlin, it’s got to widen its network of
partner cafés (there are only 40 for
now; the company is “in talks” with
the third-wave heavy-hitters) and
maybe introduce an English version
of its website and corresponding app.
Government funding, like Recup has
in its home state, also wouldn’t hurt.
Whether by pushing this scheme or
another one (phase out disposable
to-go cups entirely, the way supermarkets
did plastic bags?), isn’t it high
time for our red-red-green coalition
to finally commit to helping us reduce
our wasteful urban habits? If the
Bavarians can, we can! — AL
Find participating cafés at recup.de
German Palomeque
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EXBERLINER 163