Typical Coffee Candies from The Hague: Haagsche Hopjes

If you say “Hopje” or “Hopjes” in plural, a Dutchman will associate it with The Hague immediately. Foreigners may associate it with a typical Dutch candy.

As the Dutch words “Haags” or “Haagsch” and “Haagse” or “Haagsche” mean “something or someone from The Hague”, a Haagsch Hopje is a coffy candy from the Hague.

Wikipedia has an English Language and a Dutch language lemma on Hopje. Former links with The Hague Daily Photo Blog, a blog sadly discontinued by its author Lezard, but still worth while a visit. I took the second photo from it.

Hopje’s History is also Typically Haags
It is named after baron Hendrik Hop who used to live in The Hague. His doctor advised him not to drink coffee, but he craved coffee like many of us. According to some sources it happened entirely by accident as Hop left a mixture of coffee and sugar simmer too long on his stove so that a heavily caramelized substance was left in the cup. He asked baker Theodorus van Haaren, who lived on the ground floor, to create coffee lumps that he could dissolve in water as a coffee alike drink. After some experimenting, van Haaren created a sweet made of coffee, caramel, cream and butter.

Where else than in The Hague could a Baron cause the invention of a candy?

Noteworthy is the hopje became so popular as a candy that there were many brands, each claiming being the producer of the original hopje. Rademaker’s is one of the brands that still survive, but Haagsche Hopjes are being made in Breda nowadays.

The Hague used to have a Museum dedicated to its Hopje, but that has been closed since 1998.

Author: Happy Hotelier

Retired hotelier. Active blogger at HappyHotelier.com, Weekendhotel.blog ChairBlog.eu Haagspraak.nl and other blogs

2 thoughts on “Typical Coffee Candies from The Hague: Haagsche Hopjes”

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.