How Coffee Fueled Revolutions—and Revolutionary Ideas | HISTORY

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Jessica Pearce Rotondi

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• From the Ottoman Empire to the American and French Revolutions, coffeehouses have offered a place for (sober) people to discuss new waves of thought.

• During the Enlightenment, Voltaire, Rousseau and Isaac Newton could all be found talking philosophy over coffee. The cafés of Paris sheltered revolutionaries plotting the storming of the Bastille and later, served as the place authors like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre plotted their latest books.

• History is steeped in ideas sparked over cups of coffee.

• Coffee houses began in the Ottoman Empire. Since liquor and bars were off-limits to most practicing Muslims, coffeehouses provided an alternative place to gather, socialize and share ideas. Coffee’s affordability and egalitarian structure—anyone could come in and order a cup—eroded centuries of social norms.

• Frederick the Great of Germany was so against coffee that he attempted to outlaw the drink outright in favor of beer on September 13, 1777. Afraid that the importation of coffee was costing his kingdom (and his highness) business, he required all coffee sellers to register with the crown, denying licenses to all but a few friends of the court and employing former soldiers to work as “sniffers,” roaming the streets to detect any contraband coffee roasters.

• Coffee was seen as a patriotic drink in the colonies after the Boston Tea Party, when drinking tea fell out of fashion.

• Ottoman sultans issued and retracted coffeehouse bans well into the 18th century to prevent the gathering of dissidents. But by then, coffeehouses had already spread to Europe and were striking fear into the hearts of kings.

• Coffee was such an ingrained part of society in Saudi Arabia that failing to supply your wife with coffee was grounds for divorce.

• Pasqua Rosée opened the first coffee house in London in 1652, prompting a revolution in London society. “British culture was intensely hierarchical and structured. The idea that you could go and sit next to someone as an equal was radical,” says Markman Ellis, author of The Coffee House: A Cultural History.

• In Oxford, locals had begun calling coffee houses “penny universities” because for the cost of a cup of coffee, you could gain access to intellectual discussions and, critically, sober debate.

• At Jonathan’s Coffee House in Exchange Alley, stockbrokers crowded around to trade shares after official trading hours had closed… giving birth to the London Stock Exchange.

• Over in New York, Merchant's Coffee House was known for its gatherings of patriots eager to break free from George III. In the 1780s, it became the site where merchants organized to create both the Bank of New York and reorganize the New York Chamber of Commerce.

• The Paris's Café de Foy hosted the call to arms for the storming of the Bastille. During the Enlightenment, the Café Procope had been the place where men like Rousseau, Diderot and Voltaire gathered to hone their philosophies and art. After the Revolution, Parisian café culture again became the haunt of writers and thinkers gathering to exchange ideas and work on their next masterpiece.

• In Oxford, locals had begun calling coffee houses “penny universities” because for the cost of a cup of coffee, you could gain access to intellectual discussions and, critically, sober debate. At a time when beer was often a safer drinking option than water, this was no small thing.

• Coffee houses began in the Ottoman Empire. Since liquor and bars were off-limits to most practicing Muslims, coffeehouses provided an alternative place to gather, socialize and share ideas. Coffee’s affordability and egalitarian structure—anyone could come in and order a cup—eroded centuries of social norms.

• The sultan was so dedicated to catching coffee sippers in the act that he allegedly disguised himself as a commoner and prowled Istanbul, decapitating offenders with his hundred-pound broadsword.