At nine o'clock on a weekday morning, Nik Orosi pries open a 3kg drum of espresso grounds anticipating the usual swell of customers in the hour or two to follow.

Strong scents of pure Arabica fill the compact interior of Eli's Caffe, his family's former video-cassette and DVD shop that Mr Orosi converted a year-and-a-half ago into arguably the most forward-looking coffee shop in Zagreb, the Croatian capital.