I COULD KILL FOR A COFFEE
" The earliest enjoyment of coffee is veiled in as deep a mystery as that which surrounds the chocolate pot, one can say only that they have been used since time immemorial" - William Baker, The Chocolate pot and it's products, 1891
"With every cup of coffee you drink, you partake in one of the great mysteries of cultural history" - Bennet Alan Weinberg, The world of Caffeine
" This Devils drink is so delicious, we should cheat the Devil by baptizing it" - Pope Clement VIII, after being asked to condemn coffee as "A bitter invention of Satan"
"I need a coffee before I do anything" - Me, throughout most of 2020
Vintage Coffee Grinders
There are a few stories of how coffee drinking came about.
One story is that a passing monk thousands of years ago, saw goats jumping around excitedly after eating " Coffee Cherries". What we do know is that the first credible evidence of coffee drinking doesn't really happen until the 15th Century.
Coffee was then transported to many countries such as Yemen and Istanbul. In the late 1500s Coffee drinking had made it to Malta thanks to Turkish Muslim Slaves. The Slaves would be make their traditional coffee drink in the houses where they were slaves and eventually the rich Slave owners of Malta were drinking coffee. Coffee shops sprang up all over Malta and became a place only for High Society.
The first coffee house in the UK is believed to have been in Oxford in 1650, called The Angel and was followed 2 years later by London's first coffee shop, or rather coffee cart, operated by Pasqua Roseé. By 1675 there were over 3000 coffee shops in London, but they were not just seen as a place to grab a quick drink. They were seen as a place for open political debate and discussions among the richer classes .The authorities became restless about coffee shops fostering "Subversive discussion" and some coffee shops were shut down. One coffee shop in Edinburgh was only allowed to re-open if all it gazettes and newsletters could be inspected by the authorities before the public could read them, to ensure they only contained suitable material.
Coffee houses were a place for men only, Women were forbidden from visiting them! However in 1674 an anonymous petition surfaced, not to allow women into the coffee houses but to get them closed down altogether. The Womens petition against coffee declared "The excessive use of that newfangled, abominable, heathenish liquor called COFFEE, had eunucht our husbands, and crippled our more kind gallants, that they become as impotent as age" The petition is actually quite long (the women were not a happy bunch) but if you wish you can read the whole thing by clicking HERE
How to brew coffee from a 1700s recipe book
In 1673 in Glasgow, on the corner of Trongate and Saltmarket, the first coffee shop in Scotland was said to have been opened by Colonel Walter Whitford. Whitford was a royalist as well as a trader and in 1649 took part in the murder of Issac Dorislaus.Dorislaus was a historian who was Advocate General in Cromwells Army and he was considered by many Royalists to play a part in Charles I beheading. ( he didn't really play a big part at all!) Whitford help stab Dorislaus while shouting "So dies the killer of a King" or "Thus dies one of the Kings judges" - depending on what book you are reading.He was arrested in Edinburgh for the killing but instead of sending him to be Hung, Drawn and Quartered, the Edinburgh Authorities gave him a pension and he set up a trading business in Glasgow transporting Sugar and then Coffee.
I will end with these 2 snippets
In 1718 the Irish Parliament had to ban the adulteration of coffee beans with sheep droppings!
In Connecticut there is a gravestone that reads:
Here lies, cut down like unripe fruit
the Wife of Deacon Amos Shute
She dies of drinking too much Coffee
Anny Dominy eighteen forty