Coffeehouse

A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or cafe (also spelt café) shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on providing coffee and tea as well as light snacks. Other food may range from baked goods to soups and sandwiches, other casual meals, and light desserts. In some countries, cafes may more closely resemble restaurants, offering a range of hot meals, and possibly being licensed to serve alcohol. Many coffee houses in the Muslim world, and in Muslim districts in the West, offer shisha, powdered tobacco smoked through a hookah. In places where it is tolerated, notably the Netherlands, Christiania in Copenhagen, and certain parts of Canada, cannabis is enjoyed as well.

History

In Persia, since the 16th century, the coffeehouse (qahveh-khaneh) has served as a social gathering place where men assemble to drink coffee or tea, listen to music, play chess and backgammon, perhaps hear a recitation from the Shahnameh. In modern Iran, coffeehouses may attract a male crowd to watch the public TV.

Related Topics:
Persia - Chess - Backgammon - Shahnameh

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The traditional tale of the origins of Viennese coffeehouses begins from the mysterious sacks of green beans left behind when the Turks were defeated in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. All the sacks full of coffee were granted to the victorious Polish king Jan III Sobieski, who in turn gave them to one of his officers, Jan Kulczycki. Kulczycki began the first coffeehouse in Vienna with the hoard. It has the ring of apocrypha to skeptics who find the story too pat— and the date too late.

Related Topics:
Viennese coffeehouses - Battle of Vienna - 1683 - Polish king - Jan III Sobieski - Vienna - Apocrypha

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Coffeehouses first became popular in Europe upon the introduction of coffee in the 17th century. The first London coffeehouse opened in Cornhill in 1652; Boston had its first in 1670, and Paris in 1671. The Cafe Le Procope http://www.procope.com/, which was founded in Paris in 1689, is still in business: it was a major locus of the French Enlightenment, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot used to frequent it, and it is arguably the birthplace of the Encyclopédie, the first modern encyclopedia. Though Charles II later tried to suppress them as "places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers" (a criticism that was accurate - both the French and American revolutions were largely plotted in coffeehouses), the public flocked to them. They were great social levellers, open to all (except, generally, women), and as a result associated with equality and republicanism. More generally, coffee houses became meeting places where business could be carried on, news exchanged and the gazettes read. By 1739 there were 551 coffeehouses in London, including meeting places for Tories and Whigs, people of fashion or the "cits" of the old city center, coffeehouses known as gathering-places for the wits or for stockjobbers, merchants and lawyers, booksellers and authors. According to one French visitor, the Abbé Prévost, coffeehouses, "where you have the right to read all the papers for and against the government," were the "seats of English liberty."

Related Topics:
17th century - Cornhill - 1652 - Enlightenment - Voltaire - Rousseau - Diderot - Encyclopédie - Charles II - French - American - Gazette - 1739 - London - Tories - Whig - Stockjobbers - Abbé Prévost

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Ladies were not permitted in coffeehouses. In a well-known engraving of a Parisian coffeehouse of c 1700, the gentlemen hang their hats on pegs and sit at long communal tables strewn with papers and writing implements. Coffeepots are ranged at an open fire, with a hanging cauldron of boiling water. The only woman present presides, decently separated in a canopied booth, whence she doles out coffee in tall cups.

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In London, coffeehouses preceded the club of the mid-18th century, which skimmed away some of the more aristocratic clientele. Lloyd's of London started in a coffeehouse. Auctions in salesrooms attached to coffeehouses provided the start for the great auction houses of Sotheby's and Christie's. In New York the Tontine Coffeehouse at the foot of Wall Street near the docks became a central meeting place. In small cities a coffeehouse functioned as a place where messages might be left and picked up. American coffee shops are also often connected with indie, jazz and acoustic music, and will often have them playing either live or recorded in their shops.

Related Topics:
Club - Lloyd's of London - Sotheby's - Christie's - New York - Tontine Coffeehouse - Wall Street - Indie - Jazz - Acoustic

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