Written by Eva Beere
“Coffee – the favourite drink of the civilised world.“
Thomas Jefferson
Since the early sixteenth century, coffee and political revolutions have become increasingly intertwined, as intellectual thinkers in both Western and Eastern societies gathered in coffeehouses to freely exchange revolutionary ideals.
The importance of coffeehouses in revolutionary societies can be traced back to the Middle East, when in 1511 Khair Beg, the Governor of Mecca, banned coffee once he heard that unfavourable opinions of him had been circulating in coffeehouses. Much like wine, he believed that coffee was a dangerous drug that distorted people’s perceptions, leading to radical thoughts. Nevertheless, in a society where coffee was widely used, the ban did not last long and the influence of the beverage spread as the Ottoman Empire expanded.
Coffeehouses acted as the centre of social life outside of mosques and workplaces in the Ottoman Empire. As the Ottoman Empire held a majority Muslim population, very few frequented bars where alcohol was sold, instead opting for coffee houses as a place for men of different social classes to gather and discuss ideas. In a similar fashion to Khair Beg, Grand Vizier Kuprili of Constantinople closed all the city’s coffeehouses during the war with Candia. What is today considered a simple beverage incorporated into a traditional morning routine was considered deadly in seventeenth-century Constantinople. First-time offenders of this ban were given a beating, but a second offence resulted in the subject being sewn into a leather bag and thrown into the Bosporus River. Nevertheless, many ignored these rules. Coffeehouses became so successful in the seventeenth century that the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Murad IV, declared drinking coffee a capital offence in 1633. Fearing that the discussion in coffeehouses would breed unwelcome opinions about his rule, he even threatened coffee drinkers with execution. Although the relationship between coffeehouses and the government remained contentious well into the eighteenth century, the influence of these institutions spread beyond the boundaries of the Empire and into Europe.
Coffeehouses continued to play a controversial role, even in England, where they dissolved the strict class divides present in seventeenth-century English society. The first coffeehouse in London was opened by Pasqua Rosee in 1652 in St Michael’s Alley, conveniently a passage many London merchants frequented. Coffeehouses soon spread across London, and by 1663 there were 83 coffeehouses open in the city. Whilst outside coffeehouses, class remained distinct, these establishments offered a place of discussions between members of different socio-economic backgrounds. Although these meetings seemed to help break down the rigid class divides which plagued English society, King Charles II viewed these coffeehouses as an opportunity for treasonous ideas to emerge, fearing that plots to overthrow the monarchy would arise from such open discussions. Thus, on 29th December 1675, the King issued a proclamation for the suppression of coffeehouses, stating they “have produced very evil and dangerous effects” and that they were a “disturbance of the peace and quiet realm.” Yet, the ban received vast amounts of opposition; many viewed the coffeehouses as a symbol of free speech and discussion and thus fought for its survival.
The ban lasted less than two weeks, and by the early eighteenth century, there were an estimated two thousand coffeehouses throughout England. These became known as ‘Penny Universities’ as one would pay a penny for one cup of coffee and be exposed to an array of intellectual discussions. There was a wide variety of coffeehouses available in London: some catered for Protestants, some catered for Jews, and some even catered for the clergy. Despite the booming cornucopia of coffeehouses, they maintained a strictly male demographic, leading to a large amount of opposition from women. In 1674, a group of women wrote a pamphlet titled The Women’s Petition Against Coffee, which opened with ‘we find of late a very sensible Decay of that true Old English Vigour.’ This pamphlet accused men of engaging in seemingly ‘effeminate’ actions, like gossiping, changing the social atmosphere of England. However, the eighteenth century saw the rise of a key competitor to coffee: tea. Introduced to England by Dutch traders in the mid-seventeenth century, tea was originally served in coffeehouses, although very few consumed the drink. It was only when tea was imported by the East India Company that demand grew, leading to the fading popularity of coffee.
The coffeehouse as a political haven soon spread to France, where the institution held a crucial role in the 1789 Revolution. A century before the outbreak of the French Revolution, an Italian immigrant named Francois Procope opened Cafe de Procope opposite the Comedie Francaise, which soon attracted French actors, musicians and authors. Procopes’ Coffeehouse soon became a hotbed of artistic and literary discussion, transforming the previously considered ‘exotic’ drink, into a beverage which incited intellectual conversations. The coffeehouse was soon frequented by Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire, as well as many key members of the French Revolution, such as Marat and Danton. In fact, on the day after the storming of the Bastille on July 15th 1789, Georges Danton, the former minister for justice of France, gathered a group in the Cafe de Procope before leading a revolutionary march to the city hall.
Coffee became an increasing political drink as the struggle for independence progressed in the American colonies. Following the Boston Tea Party, tea became increasingly associated with the oppressive British rule, whilst coffee was seen as a bold political statement. The Tea Act of 1773 reduced the tax on imported British tea, giving the East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies, an attempt to help the company through its financial trouble. The Tea Act angered colonists who believed this violated the principle of self-governance, leading to a series of tea boycotts in New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and most famously, Boston. On November 28th, The Dartmouth sailed into the Boston Harbor loaded with 114 crates of British tea, which would later be followed by two more ships. Less than a month later, on December 16th, crowds, disguised as Mohawks, raided the three ships and dumped around £10,000 worth of tea into the harbor. From here, coffee became an increasingly patriotic drink. As tea became harder to find, coffeehouses served as places of growing importance in society, particularly for political activity. For example, the Boston coffeehouse ‘The Green Dragon’ is often called the ‘Headquarters of the Revolution’ and an early reading of the Declaration of Independence was performed on the steps of the City Tavern, or the Merchant Coffeehouse in Philadelphia.
From threats of execution to exciting political discussion, coffee has had a tumultuous and complex history. Originating in Ethiopia, coffee spread across the globe, from the Islamic world to Europe and the Americas, serving as an underlying factor in the explosion of several key revolutions.
Bibliography
American Battlefield Trust. “Sip, Sip, Hurrah! How Coffee Shaped Revolutionary America.” Last modified October 3, 2022. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/head-tilting-history/sip-sip-hurrah-how-coffee-shaped-revolutionary-america.
Gilpin, Eddy Kyle. “Café Liberté: The Role of the Coffeehouse in the French Revolution.” The Alexandrian 9, no. 1 (2020): 1-20. https://journals.troy.edu/index.php/test/article/view/444/360.
O’Sullivan, Feargus. “How Coffee Forever Changed Britain.” BBC Travel, November 19, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20201119-how-coffee-forever-changed-britain.
Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (New York: Basic Books, 1999)
“The King Bans Coffee.” The Old Foodie, December 29, 2006. http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/12/king-bans-coffee.html.
The Women’s Petition Against Coffee, Representing to Publick Consideration the Grand Inconveniences Accruing to Their Sex from the Excessive Use of That Drying, Enfeebling Liquor. London, 1674. Accessed November 4, 2024. https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_the-womens-petition-aga_1674/page/n2/mode/1up.
Featured image credit: “Discussing the War in a Paris Café” – a scene from the brief interim between the Battle of Sedan and Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ParisCafeDiscussion.png
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