A Short History of Coffee

It’s sometimes easy to overlook the pedigree, or history, some simple things in our lives come with…

Easy?

Who am I kidding? It’s downright baseline. Who’s thinking history while dodging dodgy drivers on the way to work?

But everything has a history and coffee—which I think actually makes up a measurable component of my blood stream at the moment—is no exception.

So the next time you click a lid on a cup of Starbucks, pour out some Dunkin’ into your favorite mug, or sit down with a friend at Top Pot Doughnuts (these guys actually built out their first shops themselves…awesome…), maybe it’ll be fun to think about the centuries, not seconds, it took to get that lovely liquid perfectly poured.

And please don’t think I brewed this up on my own. Iain Gately did it for us in his bibulous book Drink, A Cultural History of Alcohol.

Coffee was the first nonalcoholic beverage to be drunk regularly in England. People began to substitute a cup or two of this hot infusion for their morning pint of ale…[MARK’S COMMENT:IMAGINE IF, AT THE DINER TODAY YOU SAID, SURE I’D LIKE SCRAMBLED EGGS AND A BEER.’]

Coffee originated in Ethiopia and for centuries had been a popular beverage in Islamic lands, which had a monopoly on its production. The Dutch, however, had managed to obtain some coffee

bushes in 1616, which they shipped to Amsterdam and thence to Sri Lanka, where they established a plantation of their own. From Sri Lanka they carried the plant to Java, where it flourished, and by the middle of the seventeenth century, they were growing enough to begin its export to Europe. The first coffee shop in England was opened in Oxford in 1651. London had one a year later, Venice followed in 1683 and Paris in 1686. The prophet of coffee in Paris was an Italian, Frencesco Procopio [MARK’S COMMENT: NOT ENOUGH DUDES NAMED PROCOPIO, JUST SAYIN’!], whose Procope, which is still open [STILL OPEN…TALK ABOUT A BUSINESS PLAN], was the prototype of all French cafes.

And there you have it. And if you’re looking for a good book—that captures more than coffee but the history of all manner of drinks (mostly of the over- 21 variety) Gately’s book is densely packed with history, fun, and his wry sense of humor. Get ready to be impressed.