In 18th century America, where news and the powers of persuasion depended on pamphlets or word of mouth, coffeehouses rose supreme among all outlets of media. Politicians, merchants, businessmen, farmers, and mekanics – the working-class muscle of rebellion – consumed pages upon pages of lengthy opinions detailed in pamphlets and distributed among the colonial American population. But once read, where did these enraged Englishmen gather to discuss the simmering debate that was tearing at the core of unity between a people and their mother country? Where did they gather to sow the seeds of dissatisfaction and eventually ignite the fuse that burned hot until it exploded in bloodshed? Not the pub or tavern as you might expect where spirits often clouded one’s thoughts. Nor in the village commons, pressed against a soapbox while listening to an inflamed patriot’s sword-rattling diatribe, admonishing everything from taxes to improperly dug tombs.[1] It was the coffeehouse that attracted throngs of both patriots and loyalists to share the news with each offering their own take on events. Where important debates swirled around tables and dimly lit parlors. Where plots were hammered out between men of influence and their artisan counterparts. And where all classes rubbed shoulders, both wealthy and the poor, united in causes that split the colonies along partisan lines and embroiled the land in civil war.
But why were coffeehouses significant in a society addicted to tea? The Boston Tea Party emphasized the importance of the tea industry when the Sons of Liberty used it as a political weapon. No doubt, dumping crates of coffee in the Boston harbor would not have turned many heads both in America and London. Though coffee was cheaper per pound than tea, it was far less consumed so again, why coffeehouses? Why were there no teahouses to act as rallying points of rebellion since the imported leaves were so popular, much more so than roasted beans? The answer, then as now, had to do with status and marketing an image. From the mid-1600’s in London, coffee was seen as a luxury and by the early 1700’s, there were over a thousand coffeehouses throughout England’s capital. From the moment of their birth, the coffeehouse became a cauldron of mixed classes that defied one’s station in life.
Coffee was native to Africa, Ethiopia to be more precise, and made its way to Europe by the 1500’s. In the early 1600’s, the Dutch introduced coffee seeds to the East and West Indies and they, along with the French, added coffee to the New World plantation systems. Unlike tea, coffee required more effort to prepare. The beans had to be roasted just right and then ground by hand. In an age where everything was labor intensive from making one’s own candles, butter, homespun clothing, and a thousand other items we now take for granted, coffee was not high on the list of ‘things to do.’ However, for the wealthy, the extra time commitment meant that affluent Londoners could show off their privileged status by having their servants prepare the coffee and serve the opulent drink to their guests. Coffee was a drink for the rich; a nectar of the Gods so to speak, beyond the middle class and insignificant peasantry.
But almost overnight, that changed for good. In 1652, Pasqua Rosée, the Greek servant of a coffee-loving British Levant merchant, opened London’s first coffee shack, or coffeehouse. It sat inconspicuously against the stone wall of St. Michael’s churchyard in a labyrinth of alleys off Cornhill. Suddenly, coffee was available to all without the chore of preparing it. And it was cheap, cheap enough for all walks of life to take part. In a couple of years, over 600 cups of coffee were served daily to both rich and poor alike. “Black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love,” according to an old Turkish proverb; the opaque liquid was shot with grit and a huge success.
Though the majority of patrons did not understand the impact caffeine had on their bodies, the very first coffeehouse masters understood how to market the liquid described as “syrup of soot and the essence of old shoes.” Word got out. People loved how the “bitter Mohammedan gruel”, as The London Spy described it in 1701, kindled conversations, fired debates, and sparked ideas. Pasqua took note and printed a handbill that pointed out coffee’s attributes – The Virtue of the Coffee Drink, 1652. In it he told people how to drink coffee, when to consume it– warning not to do so after dinner as it would hinder sleep, and hailing it as the miracle cure for every ailment conceived by mankind including dropsy, scurvy, and gout. His huge success was not hindered by the fact his coffee shack was a stone’s throw from the great center of international commerce, the Royal Exchange.
Early on, coffeehouses became a haven for businessmen to gather and conduct their affairs. The brew kept discussions alive and patrons felt more articulate and clear-headed in their dealings than they would at a tavern. Coffee spurred debates and stimulated some of the era’s great thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton, Samuel Pepys and Sir Hans Sloane. All the coffeehouses followed the same blueprint – augmenting the interaction between customers and forging a creative, convivial environment. They emerged as smoky candlelit forums for commercial transactions, spirited debate, and exchange of information, ideas, and rumors.[2] But unique to the coffeehouse environment, was the interaction of all classes. The Swiss nobleman Cesar de Saussure wrote in 1726 that “In London, there are a great number of coffeehouses… workmen habitually begin the day by going to coffee rooms to read the latest news.” He smirked that nothing was funnier than seeing shoeblacks and other riffraff poring over papers and discussing the latest political affairs.
John Macky, travel writer, wrote in 1714 about a coffeehouse in Covent Garden, marveling at how strangers, whatever their social background or political allegiances, were always welcomed into lively convivial company.[3] Along with the fashionable elite were scholars, working men, scientists, artisans, and when a few extra shillings could be scraped together, even some of the poor peasantry. However, as universal as the coffeehouse pretended to be, gender bias in a male dominated society restricted them to men’s only clubs. Women were not allowed as patrons; however, they were permitted to serve the gentlemen and some coffeehouses doubled as back room brothels.
The very first settlers to America came with mortar and pestle for making “coffee powder.” By 1669, coffee seasoned with cinnamon and honey was being brewed in New York while the New World’s first established coffeehouse opened a year later in Boston, run by a woman no less, Dorothy Johnson. Like their counterparts in England, colonials quickly nourished a reputation for serving bad coffee and big business. The Merchant Coffeehouse of Boston was the chosen location for the first public stock auction. Wall Street’s Tontine Coffeehouse became the New York Stock Exchange. Perhaps the statue depicting Alexander Hamilton at the present day exchange would be more historically accurate if it had him sipping a cup of Joe. By the early 1700’s, England and so too her colonies, became tea-drinking societies. Oddly, a nation that established trade and agricultural plantations all across the globe, never really invested in coffee, instead chosing to import tea. It wasn’t until 1742 that England finally set up coffee plantations in Jamaca. Colonists brewed their tea at home, and drank coffee in public houses where all classes met and spoke of the day’s news or did business.
As in England, the royal governors and colonial plutocratic society that kept a stranglehold on the masses and political affairs in the provincial governments were uneasy by the clientele that frequented the coffeehouses. Those in power saw the coffeehouse as a threat to the status quo. After the French & Indian War ended in 1763 and discord grew among colonists, both rich and poor, over acts passed in Parliament, the coffeehouses allowed opportunities for people of different classes to talk and share ideas. The John Hancocks of New England and rich plantation owners of the southern colonies, who saw their purses threatened by England’s revenue seeking agents, not only bellied up to the bar with their peers, but sitting across the table were mekanics – artisans and working class ‘roughens’ and dockworkers who provided the clout and muscle for open rebellion. Men of all backgrounds gathered to enjoy an eye-opening drink and discuss the news of the day. They exchanged ideas and read aloud papers and pamphlets that in turn, often spurred action. John Adams noted that “the debates and deliberations in Congress are impenetrable secrets; but the chat of the coffeehouse, are free and open…”
Interesting to note, that in 1776, savvy coffeehouse masters made a financial killing using tactics that have been copied, almost verbatim, by modern day coffeehouses. In many respects, there were 1776 Starbucks on every corner of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City. The present-day planners and organizers of the explosive coffeeshop industry had only to look back to the time of our Founders to find the recipe for success – amounting to today’s nineteen billion dollar a year industry in just the United States alone. Bryant Simon argues in Everything but Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks, that Starbucks took a simple product and handcrafted it into a status symbol through crafty advertising and presentation. No different than what the Greek servant Pasqua Rosée did in 1652 when he sent out leaflets praising coffee’s benefits to all classes, just down the road from the Exchange. Seventeenth century coffee sellers catered to those who saw themselves as the movers and shakers of their day – as do today’s coffeehouse patrons who sip a high end, overpriced product while conversing freely in a relaxed but energizing social gathering.
Simon wrote that Starbucks’ “customers identified themselves as belonging to a group of successful people with hip, urbane tastes.” Exactly why colonial working- and middle-class patrons made daily visits to their favorite coffeehouses – they too wanted to feel important by discarding their station in life and rubbing shoulders with Boston’s and Philadelphia’s elites – the hipsters of Congress. And so too, Starbucks molded an atmosphere similar to their 18th century counterparts; a pleasant environment of comfy chairs that promoted both social and diverse discourse among its patrons. Perhaps while sipping a cinnamon dolce crème or downing a Frappuccino before ending with a double latte, the seeds for the next revolution are being sown this very moment among Starbuck’s passionate patrons.[4]
Stewart Allen noted in his The Devil’s Cup, A History of the World According to Coffee, that once tea was dumped into the Boston harbor, it “precipitated the American Revolution, ensuring that coffee forever after remained the only cup a red-blooded, gun loving, TV-addled American would be seen drinking in public. We became a nation of java junkies, wired from dawn to dusk, intent on running faster, getting richer, dancing harder, playing longer, and getting higher than anybody else. Funny that we never learned how to make the stuff.”[5]
If you would like to read more about the history of coffee and coffeehouses, check out these free previews of books on Amazon.
Exciting new series of African Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War. Check out Josiah, Book 1 of the Shades of Liberty Series.
Other articles of interest on Revolutionary War Journal
History of Dentistry in the 18th Century
Coopers Had the Colonists Over a Barrel: 18th Century Barrel & Cask Production in America.
Lighting Colonial Homes – Candles & Much More
How Did Revolutionary War Soldiers Write Home? Powdered Ink & the History of Iron Gall Ink
Colonial Pocket & Folding Knives – History of the Barlow Knife
Meat & Game in Colonial America
Cultivating Corn during the American Colonial Period
SOURCE
Allen, Stewart Lee. The Devil’s Cup, A History of the World According to Coffee. 2018:
Biderman, Bob. A People’s History of Coffee and Cafes. 2013: Black Apollo Press, Cambridge, UK.
Green, Matthew. The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse. 2013: Idler Books: publicdomainreview.org/2013/08/07/the-lost-world-of-the-london-coffeehouse/
Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World. 2010: Basic Books & Perseus Book Group, New York, NY.
Regelski, Christina. The Revolution of American Drinking. 2019:
Simon, Bryant. Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks. 2009: Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Smith, S. D. “Accounting for Taste: British Coffee Consumption in Historical Perspective,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 27, No. 2 (1996), pg. 186.
Wild, Anthony. Coffee: A Dark History. 2004: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Tombs was the 18th century vernacular for outhouses and sewer pits.
[2] Green.
[3] Ibid.
[4] So too, artificial coffee was more common during the Revolutionary War than we think. Colonists who could not afford coffee and enslaved people who were denied access to it created their own forms of coffee found in their own gardens —such as cowpeas and sweet potatoes—considered substitutes for coffee. Also corn – cornmeal scorched in a kettle, boiled and sweetened with molasses.
[5] Allen, pg. 197.