Coffee and coffee houses

The first coffee house in England opened in Oxford in 1650, and was soon followed by a similar establishment in the City of London, run by a Turkish importer named Pasqua Rosee. The popularity of the new drink soared and by the end of the century there were 500 coffee houses in the capital alone.

These soon became known as centres of intellectual and political debate as much as places of leisure. In 1675, Charles II made a doomed attempt to have the London venues closed down because he suspected – not entirely inaccurately – that they were breeding grounds for all sorts of dissenting talk.

Although it might seem unimaginable today, there had been no such thing as a stimulant beverage in England before. Coffee was everybody’s first experience of caffeine and, once it was in our systems, it would never leave again. It enabled workers to stay alert for longer, and it also lay behind the hearty conversation and disputes that went on in the coffee houses until well into the next century.

During the hostilities that took place in the build-up to the American War of Independence, the British took to loyally drinking tea in preference to coffee, after the rebel colonists began boycotting tea and took up coffee. The national preference has never really shifted in the two centuries and more since then – either here or the US.

And chocolate…

Chocolate had been known about since the Spanish voyages of conquest to South America in the 16th century, but was initially overlooked when the first samples were brought back to Europe. It made its English debut in the same decade as coffee and tea, the first chocolate house being opened by an unnamed Frenchman, in the City of London in 1657. At this time, most of England’s chocolate was supplied by Jamaica.

Initially known purely as a hot drink (chocolate bars were to come much later), chocolate was something of an acquired taste at first. When mixed only with hot water, as it was taken by South Americans, it was found to be unacceptably bitter. The breakthrough for European tastes came when it was mixed with sugar and later milk, as tea and coffee were. Like tea and coffee, it was so expensive at first that only the rich could afford it, but that was soon to change.