Everyman’s Meeting Place The coffee house

1650 Angel in Oxford; 1652 London• c. 1650’s meeting place for the Oxford

scholars who would form the Royal Society• Not just coffee – tea, chocolate, alcohol• Public discourse, public business – wit, gossip,

stock trading, insurance• 82 coffee-houses in London by 1663

The Oxford Coffee House

• Penny University• Queen’s Lane 1654 and still open• Tom’s catered to dons• Others catered to students of different

colleges• Johnson found the patrons tipsy

[but, it is argued, less so than patrons of the more than 300 ale houses]

Pasqua Rosée and Daniel Evans

• Daniel Edwards, Levant merchant • Pasqua Rosée, Greek servant and manager

Early Coffee Houses

Token, Sultaness Head Coffee House BM

Rainbow Coffee House

• Freemasons• Huguenot refugees

Concentration of Coffee Houses

Areas of London

• Royal Exchange: businessmen• St James's and Westminster: politicians• St Paul's Cathedral: clergymen and theologians

The London Coffee House

You have all Manner of News there: You have a good Fire, which you may sit by as long as you please: You have a Dish of Coffee; you meet your Friends for the Transaction of Business, and all for a Penny, if you don't care to spend more.

Misson, Maximilien. Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England. Trans. J. Ozell. London: D. Browne 1719

By 1708, 500 to 600 in the City and Westminster; 3,000 in greater London. 18th C. observers noted artisans started their day with coffee and the news.

News

• Runners report the latest news• Free access to newspapers and pamphlets• Postings of sailings and auctions

Specialization

• 1659 Miles’ – Rota debating society• 1670-1700 Will’s – Poetry, literature – Dryden• 1680 Jonathan’s – Revolutionaries, papist

plotters• Alice’s, Westminster – Lords, Commons and

barristers

Coffee houses elsewhere

1673 EdinburghSurveillance for illicit newspapers

End of 1680s Cambridge, Bristol, Greater Yarmouth, Gloucester1697 Boston Green Dragon Tavern and Coffee House

Coffee

..that Grave and Wholesome Liquor,that heals the Stomach, makes the Genius quicker,Relieves the Memory, revives the Sad,and cheers the Spirits, without making Mad.

Coffee−Medicine

Electuary of Cophy• Organon Salutis: an

instrument to cleanse the stomach: A flexible whale-bone, two or three feet long, with a small linen or silk button at the end, introduced into the stomach to produce the effect of an emetic.

• Take the electuary of coffee before and after using the instrument.

• Take equal quantity of Butter and Sald Oil, melt them well together, but not boyle them:

• Then stirre them well • Then melt therewith three

times as much Honey, and stirre

• Then add powder of Turkish Cophie, to make it a thick Electuary.

Taxing Coffee and Tea

1660 Tax of 4d/gallon on coffee/ 8d/gallon on tea1663 License coffee houses at 12d

• Ground coffee at 1s. 6d to 6s. 8d/lb.

Mad Dog in a Coffee House

1695 Coffee House Scene

Lloyd’s Coffee House

Pro Coffee

Suppression

Pro and anti

Benefits of Coffee

• Increased the Trade of Tobacco and Pipes, Earthen dishes: Tin wares, News-Papers, Coals, Candles, Sugar, Teas, Chocolate

• Makes people sociable• Improve Arts, and Merchandise, and

Knowledge;

Houghton, John. "A Discourse of Coffee, Read at a Meeting of the Royal Society, by Mr. John Houghton, FRS." Philosophical Transactions 21.248-259: 311-317 (1699).

Chocolate

• Early recommendation

Chocolate House

• Later sold at coffee houses

• Chocolate houses known for rowdiness– Probably mixed with

alcohol

White’s Chocolate House

White’s according to Hogarth

Tea

• 1657 Introduced at Thomas Garraway’s coffee house

• Used as medicinal • 1669 British East India company receives its

first order: two canisters of tea weighing 143 lbs 8 oz from Bantam (Banten, Java)

Tea as a Court Drink

• 1662 Catherine of Braganza brings a preference to England

• Use no longer medicinal• Popular with literary figures• Popular with women

Tea for the Public

• Sold in coffee houses• Sultaness Head in Sweetings Rents• Garraway’s Coffee House in Exchange Alley.

Earliest known silver coffee pot ~1680V&A

Gift to East India Company

Silver tea pot~1670V&A

Tea CanisterStaffordshire1690-98

13 cm

Chocolate cups, 1690-95, London

Rum

17th C. North Sea1760-85, British fort, Staten Island

Rum and the Navy

1655 Gallon of beer ration [small beer ~1-2%] replaced with half pint of rum [space saver]1740 Admiral Vernon “Old Grog”, concerned about drunkenness replaced this with a 1:4 mixture (grog)1824 Reduced to ¼ pint1850 “Grog Committee” reduces this to 1/8 pint July 31, 1970 Black Tot Day

Rum and the Colonies

• 1664 First distillery on Staten Island• 1667 Boston, Massachusetts– Technical, metalworking and cooperage skills – Abundant lumber

• Molasses Act of 1733