Coffee Houses and Their Social Relevance, British Literature, B.A English Literature 1st Semester Revised Syllabus 2020

A Brief History of Coffee 

Coffee originated in Ethiopia in the 10th Century, reached Yemen by the 15th century and by the 16th-century coffee had spread to Persia (Iran) and Turkey.

In 1645 the first European coffeehouse opened in Venice and it became popular throughout Europe during the late 17th century.

In 1652 Pasqua Rosée, a Greek opened the first coffee stall in the churchyard of St Michael’s Cornhill in the City of London.

The first coffeehouse was opened in America in 1689 and henceforth it spread throughout the world.

The Social Significance of the Coffeehouse :

The coffeehouse, across many times and places, has served as one of the primary public spaces for members of society to meet, discuss politics, engage in business, pursue the arts, or simply shoot the breeze with familiars or strangers. With such a culturally significant role, the coffeehouse became the backdrop for a great many societal transformations.

The Rise of the Coffee-house :

By the late 15th century, European traders to Turkey and the Middle East were already very familiar with coffee drinking. One early trader in the region, William Bidulph, described the popularity of ‘a kind of drink made of a kind of Pulse like Pease’ on his travels there, while in the early 1600s another traveller, George Sandys, described the popularity of coffee drinking in the Turkish capital, Constantinople.

Initially, European enthusiasm for coffee drinking arose from its perceived health benefits. Coffee was celebrated for the stimulating properties it exhibited on the brain, and could be drunk in abundance without suffering the ill-effects of excessive ale or wine drinking. Broader health benefits were also offered by early champions of the drink, including its usefulness as a cure for headaches, gout and skin conditions

The first purpose-built English coffee-houses were established in the 1650s in Oxford, where the mind-stimulating benefits of the beverage complemented the spirit of sober academic discussion and debate evident at the university there. These early coffee-houses (christened ‘Penny Universities’ by outsiders) were largely the exclusive resort of the educated and well-to-do, places where learned men and their students came to demonstrate their wit and intellectual talents: this feature of coffeehouse culture was also in evidence in London as the drink slowly gained popularity there.

London’s first coffee-house was established in 1652 by a Greek servant to the Levant Company, Pasqua Rosée. This establishment was soon joined by a handful of other coffee-houses based in the City and on the fringes of the rapidly developing West End. Though undoubtedly a novel alternative for those seeking to avoid the often bawdy drunkenness of London’s many taverns and alehouses, mid 17th-century coffee-houses struggled initially to achieve much popularity. For many years they remained the haunt of a well-educated and commercial elite.

Many British institutions have their roots in these early coffeehouses :

Established in 1660, members of the Royal Society met in coffeehouses to discuss, debate, and exchange knowledge. Isaac Newton even once dissected a dolphin on the table of the Grecian Coffeehouse.

The London Stock Exchange evolved from Jonathan’s Coffee-House, a coffeehouse founded by Jonathan Miles, in Exchange Alley, around 1680.

Lloyd’s Coffee House was opened by Edward Lloyd on Tower Street in around 1688 and was frequented by members of the shipping community such as merchants, sea captains, and shipowners and was a place to discuss insurance deals. The dealing that took place led to the establishment of the insurance market Lloyd’s of London and Lloyd’s Register.

William Shipley founded the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in 1754 and held its first meeting at Rawthmell’s Coffee House in Covent Garden.

The auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s also have their origins in coffeehouses.

Decline and fall :

By the close of the 18th century the popularity of coffee-houses had declined dramatically. Already by the 1750s consumption of tea, which many people found to be a sweeter, more palatable drink of choice, was beginning to eclipse that of coffee.[14] Unlike coffee, tea was also surprisingly cheap and simple to prepare in the comfort of the home, without the need for any complex roasting and grinding. Thus tea drinking as a public and sociable act failed to take off in the way that coffee did (at least until the rise of tea salons in the late 19th century), and failed to enliven the social and political life of Georgian Britain in the same way.