[Sca-cooks] A college class... on Coffee

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Bill Fisher:
>On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 09:52:15 -0500, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
><adamantius.magister at verizon.net> wrote:
>>  I never really thought of it as exclusively an act of public
>>  participation, and if it is that, it may be a comparatively recent
>>  change to coffee's role. Not everyone lives on the set of "Friends".
>>  Of course, 'Lainie is in Starbucks country, I believe (boo, hiss!) ;-)
>>
>>  I think there may be a cultural tradition for hot drinks in period,
>>  but not associated with a caffeine rush, so...
>
>>
>>  Bingo. On the other hand, one might consider the emotional attachment
>>  period people seem to have had with things like caudles and possets.
>>  They could be served to sick people, were drunk from cups held in two
>>  hands in front of a roaring fire, and often took the place of a meal.
>>  They could be drunk by people alone or at a party (OK, post period)
>>  at Samuel Pepys' house. It sounds a little like your communal
>>  coffee-drinking, with perhaps a comfort-food aspect to replace the
>>  caffeine, and no issue-clouding alcohol (or not much) in the equation.
>>
>>  Adamantius
>
>I don't think it is a tradition of the hot drink but of social gathering...
>
>  I think the ale-house is a bleed off from the old roman
>"tabernae."  Places where people could meet and be social and
>do business outside of their home. 
>
>The alehouse replaced the tabernae later in period (more likely
>was just another incurrence of the same style of business, not
>a direct descendant) and
>then the coffeehouse was a branch off of that same tree when
>coffee arrived on the scene in the 1600's.
>
>Tea was included in the same venue later, and the establishment
>of afternoon tea in the 1700's cemented the tea social gathering.
>
>In the 1900's the German KaffeeKlatsch, or afternoon coffee
>becomes popular. 
>
>So it seems there has always been a pattern of  "beverage
>social gathering."
>
>In the case of the alehouse, it is probably a matter of
>economics. 
>
>1.  You make ale
>2.  People like your ale.
>3.  Ale is a pain to ship
>4.  having a place where you can sell your ale and people can
>drink it there, mans you don't have to ship it
>5.  having social meetings there as well means people drink more
>ale.
>
>You can sub coffee/tea/chai/wine/et al into that equation and
>it works.
>
>The alehouses and coffee houses took the place of the central
>town square where people could hang out and do business
>(my theory anyway.)  Basicially a way to take your social life
>and business out of your home.
>
>The alehouses evolved into the public house later, or pub.

I think what you're describing is a phenomenon that doesn't 
necessarily translate into a universal trend throughout history. 
Coffee-houses were in vogue among the upper classes in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, probably because coffee was not 
something the working classes trusted or could afford. There's an 
interesting reversal of the social order in the nineteenth century, 
where Joe Average stopped hanging out [as much] in the alehouse and 
started drinking tea and coffee and cocoa, and that, as much at home, 
or more so, as at shops dedicated for that purpose.

There's a book somewhere on my shelves about the bumpy rise of 
coffee, tea, chocolate and tobacco, but after a quick check I don't 
see it. I think it's called "Forbidden Pleasures"...

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04