Chapter II: Introduction: Into Europe

It is likewise very difficult to determine in what year and in what exact manner coffee was first carried from Constantinople to western Europe, but it is generally admitted that the Venetians, on account of the proximity of their dominions and extensive trade with the Levant, were the first Europeans to become acquainted with it. And it is a noteworthy fact that the three principal dietical beverages of the world were introduced into Europe within a few years of each other, Cocoa being the first of the three which actually appeared there, having been brought to Spain from South America. Coffee followed, coming from Arabia, and Tea, the latest of the series, coming from China by the hands of the Portuguese.

The first authentic mention made of Coffee or its use by a European is probably that of Rauwolf, a German physician and traveler, upon his return from an extended tour through Syria, in 1573. The first scientific account of the plant being that given by Alpinus, an Italian naturalist, in his _Medicina Egyptorium_, published in Venice in 1591. Its use as a beverage is first referred to by two English travelers--Biddulph and Finch--the former, in writing of it in 1603, stating “that the Turks have for their most common drink Coffee--a blackish drink made from a kind of pulse-like pease, and called by them _Coava_.” In 1607 Finch relates that “the people of the island Socotra have for their best entertainment a China dish called _Cobo_, a black, bitterish drink, made of a berry very like a bay-berry, brought from Moka, and supped off hot.” While Pietro Valla, a Venetian, in a letter written from Constantinople, in 1615, states that upon his return to Venice “he would bring back with him some coffee which he believed was a thing heretofore unknown in his country,” and which he subsequently did. It is also referred to, in 1621, by Burton in his “Anatomy of Melancholy” as follows: “The Turks have a drink called Coffee, so named from a berry, black as soot and as bitter, which they sip up hot, because they find by experience that that kind of drink, so used, helpeth digestion and promoteth alacrity.” And coffee in a liquid state is said to have been sold in Rome as early as 1625. Some of the prepared beans of Coffee were first carried from Turkey to France by De la Haye, as early as 1644; “not only coffee, but also the proper apparatus for preparing it.” In 1657 a small quantity was brought to Paris by Thevenot, its use, however, being confined solely to his own immediate family and a few friends. Up to this period, however, and for many years after, it had never been seen and scarcely ever heard of by the public at large in that country. But in 1660 “several bales of coffee” were shipped from Alexandria to Marseillaise, and in 1671 the first coffee-house was opened in the latter city near the Exchange, “where the merchants met to smoke, talk business and divert themselves with play.” But it was not until the year 1669 that Coffee drinking became popular in France, though infrequent travelers had brought with them from the East a few pounds of the then curious berry. In that year Solieman Aga was sent as Ambassador from Mahomet IV. to the court of Louis XIV., where he soon became a “lion,” through the splendid and unique entertainments at which he figured as host. On bended knees, the black slaves of the Ambassador, arrayed in the most gorgeous Oriental costumes, presented the choicest Moka, in tiny cups of egg-shell porcelain, hot, strong and fragrant, poured out on saucers of gold and silver, placed on embroidered silk napkins fringed with gold bullion, to the grand dames who fluttered their fans with many grimaces, and bent their piquant faces--berouged, bepowdered and bepatched--over the new and steaming beverage. Such was the half-barbaric occasion by which Coffee first became generally known to that nation, which is now so largely dependent upon the “brown berry of Arabia.” The Parisians immediately became quite enthusiastic over it, the aristocracy adopting it as the fashionable beverage, it being recorded that the daughters of Louis XIV. had Coffee imported expressly for the use of the royal household, at a cost of $15,000 yearly.

The first Coffee-house was opened in Paris, in 1672, by an Armenian, at the fair of St. Germaine. Meeting with considerable success, he was encouraged to open another at the Quai d’Ecole, where he was subsequently succeeded by another, but who, owing to a lack of address and a proper place to serve it in, was soon compelled to relinquish the business. About 1675 an enterprising Frenchman, Ettienne d’Alep, fitted up spacious apartments in the Rue des Italienes, with Oriental magnificence for the purpose of catering to the public taste for coffee. This Café--as it was called--was the first of these now famous institutions, was furnished in the most elegant and expensive manner, ornamented with rich tapestries, mirrors, pictures, divans and costly lustres, tea and chocolate being also sold in it. This style of coffee-house multiplied in a very short time in the gay city, and were regularly frequented by people of fashion, artists, men of letters and politicians, the Café Procope in particular becoming immortalized from its being patronized by Voltaire, Molière, Bolieau, Fontaine and other Encyclopedists, while another, the Café de la Régence, became the Mecca of chess players. In a brief period these coffee-houses had increased to nearly three hundred in Paris alone, the Cafés eventually becoming dangerous rivals to the Cabarets; finally becoming the cradle of the modern clubs, it being in one of these coffee-houses--the Café Procope--that Camille Desmoulins was wont to deliver his stirring addresses. But, as in the East, at first, coffee here again met with considerable opposition, Madame Sévigné presuming “that coffee and other poisons would soon go out of fashion.”

The use of coffee as a beverage is claimed to have been known in England prior to its introduction into France, and by some authorities even before the return of Thevenot from the East. One account states that it was first offered for sale there by a Jew named Jacobs at Oxford, as early as 1640. And according to the journal of Thomas Rugg, dated September 22, 1651, coffee was then sold in a liquid state at the “Sultaness Head, a Cophee house by the Royal Exchange, London,” there being also distinct evidence extant that for some years prior to that date it was also offered for sale in many other parts of that city. The first authentic account, however, states that coffee was first introduced into England by a Turkey merchant named Daniel Edwards, who, on his return from a trip to Smyrna, brought back with him a quantity of it, and with it a Greek servant from Ragusa, named Pasquale Rossie, who understood the Eastern method of roasting and preparing it. Edwards had it prepared and served every day to his friends and visitors in true Oriental style, but finding that the novelty began to attract too many visitors, his house being thronged daily by those anxious to taste the new beverage, he established Rossie, in company with another named Bowman, in a tent for its sale in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, London, over which Rossie erected a sign with his own portrait, and subsequently announcing himself to be “the first person who made and publicly sold Coffee drink in England.” Bowman, later, opened a coffee-house on his own account on Lombard street, his former partner, Rossie, going to Holland, where, it is said, he was the first to introduce coffee in the drink. At this time coffee sold for from twenty to twenty-five dollars per pound, but soon became cheaper.

In 1657 many other houses were opened in London for the sale of coffee, an excise tax of eight pence per gallon being paid on it, when made and sold in the infusion at that time. The same year a newspaper advertisement appeared, stating that “In Bartholomew Lane on the back of the old Exchange the drink called _Cophee_ is sold in the morning and at three o’clock in the afternoon.” The first mention of coffee on the statute books was in 1660, when a duty of four pence was laid on every gallon of coffee made and sold, to be paid by the maker thereof, another particular statute, in 1663, directing that “all coffee-houses should be licensed at the general quarter sessions of the peace for the county in which they are kept.” While another advertisement in that year says of coffee: “It much quickens the spirits, and makes the heart lightsome, suppresseth the fumes exceedingly, and, therefore, is good against headache, prevents cough and consumption, and is excellent for the cure of gout, dropsy, scurvey, hypochondria and the like.”

In London, as in the other cities where Coffee was first introduced, coffee-houses multiplied rapidly, not only in the capital, but in all the larger cities of England, there being in 1688, according to Ray, as many coffee-houses in London alone as in grand Cairo itself, Coffee becoming a beverage of general consumption throughout the entire country. Long antedating newspapers, the coffee-houses became news-centres, where the intelligent men of the times gathered to learn what was occurring in the literary and political world, to discuss public affairs, governmental measures, and form public opinion. Wits and poets, essayists and philosophers, daily gathered in the coffee-houses of London, during several generations, to quote from favorite authors. How faithfully they harangued and button-holed each other in that fashion so common to all ages, and within their precincts, what fear and folly, what foolishness and wisdom, have been uttered over steaming cups of Mocha.

Many of these London coffee-houses afterwards became famous as the resorts of celebrated men. It was at “Will’s Coffee-house,” in Covent Garden, that Dryden and Addison, Steel and Davenant, Cary and Pope, met with other luminaries, while others frequented “Buttons”; Garrick sipping his Mocha at “Paine’s,” in Buchnal Lane. It being at the famous coffee-houses of “Garraway,” “Coventrie,” and the “St. James,” that the Whigs of that time “did most congregate,” and if it be proved that other potations more fiery and deep mingled with those of the Arabian product, it may be taken for granted that Coffee often supplied the place of worse beverages, or, at least, mitigated their evil effects, the “intellectual drink” gaining friends daily among the wits of the reign of Queen Anne. It was in a London coffee-house that Pope found the inspiration of “The Rape of the Lock,” if not the “Essay on Man,” also, an inspiration, which he celebrated in the following lines:--

“From silver spirits the grateful liquors glide,
While China’s earth receives the smoking tide;
At once they gratify their sense and taste,
And frequent cups prolong the rich repast;
Coffee! which makes the politician wise,
And see through all things with half-closed eyes.”

The coffee-houses of London, as in other cities, eventually became convenient and much frequented resorts of association and acquaintance where politics, literature and business topics were freely discussed, and it is also remarkable that the introduction of coffee into England encountered the same hostility that it was fated to meet with in all other countries where it was first introduced. Here also it had its fanatical opponents, numerous pamphlets being published in favor of and against its use. It was discussed from every point of view, medical, moral, physical and political, at one time threatening to become a _causus belli_ between the sexes. The “Women’s petition against coffee” and the “Men’s answer” to the same have become a matter of history. Among the men also the new beverage had its opponents, as in 1657 the “Rainbow Coffee-house” kept by James Farr in Queen’s Temple was reputed and persecuted by them as “a great nuisance, and a prejudice to the neighborhood,” and as such was suppressed, but reopened in a short time afterwards. In 1675 Charles II. for political reasons attempted to suppress the coffee-houses by a royal proclamation, classing all of them as “Seminaries of sedition,” and in which it was stated that “they were the resort of disaffected persons who devised and spread abroad divers false, malicious and scandalous reports to the defamation of His Majesty’s Government, the disturbance of the peace and quiet of the nation.” This proclamation caused so much excitement throughout the city that it had to be rescinded in a few days on a petition from the tea and coffee dealers. On the opinion of legal officials being taken as to the legality of that step, an oracular deliverance was given to the effect “that the retailing of coffee might be an innocent trade, but as it was used to nourish sedition, spread lies and scandalize great men, it might also prove a common nuisance.” Cromwell ordered them closed again during the Protectorate for somewhat similar reasons, but having become necessary to the people they could not be put down for any length of time. But in England also, as in the other countries, the most effective check on the increase of the consumption of coffee was found to be a heavy tax, which, while restricting honest trade, opened up a channel for extensive smuggling operations.

The London coffee-houses, however, soon assumed the additional character of Taverns also, other liquors being added to the fare, thereby losing their attraction for the temperately inclined, the Café or coffee-house proper flourishing only for any length of time in Paris alone. But while the people of London began to complain that the company to be found in their coffee-houses was somewhat mixed, those of the Parisians from the very first continued to be the most elegant and select places of resort even to the present day. Before their doors the equipages of the nobility stopped, while ladies of the highest rank drank their coffee without alighting, and the Salons within were crowded with nobles, philosophers, poets, artists and litterateurs.

The sale of Coffee in a liquid form is claimed to have been first introduced to Holland by the aforementioned Rossie in 1664, from whence its use soon spread throughout Germany and other parts of the continent of Europe. While to Vienna the Turks themselves first introduced coffee in 1683, under somewhat singular circumstances. In that year the Moslems besieged that city with an enormous force, the siege being raised, as history tells, by the Polish King, John Sobieski, and the Moslem hordes completely routed. Large quantities of coffee were found in their deserted camp, and presented to one Kolschutski as a reward for the heroic services he had rendered during the investment of the city, and utilized by him in the establishment of the first Coffee-house in Vienna.

Coffee-houses have been known in the United States from an early period in its history, but for a long time New Orleans was the only city where they existed in their true character, the manner being learned from Paris. Among the American people, however, the beverage has met from the first with great favor, being at the present time more extensively used here than in any country of the world, not excepting the countries of original production.

Thus in a course of a few centuries has a berry, until then entirely unknown as an article of diet, except to the semi-savage tribes of Ethiopia and Abyssinia, made its way through the whole civilized world. In the nations professing the religion of Mahomet it is drunk at all hours of the day, and during the night by all ranks and classes of the people, from the Sultan and the Mufti to the merchant, the artisan and the peasant. While among the nations professing Christianity, by whom it has been known for a couple of centuries, it is still regarded as a luxury, but indulged in, more or less, by all classes and conditions of society. In none of the states of Christendom was its use ever opposed by religious fanaticism, nor had it to encounter much opposition from political jealousy, except for a brief period in England, when its use was interdicted by Charles II. But, like every other innovation which has occupied the human mind, it could not fail to occasion a difference of opinion among medical experts, social reformers and similar bodies. Its history, at the present time, being only valuable as an example of a commodity for which there is a universal craving amongst mankind in general, civilized as well as savage, and to illustrate how it has struggled successfully, and at length triumphantly, over religious superstition, political opposition, physiological prejudice, fiscal restrictions, exorbitant taxes, differential duties and an endless accumulation of antiquated obstructions. Yet, still, in common with other important necessaries of life, it has never attained to the natural state of “unrestricted competition.”