Cafés

Cafés as we recognize them today were born in Europe, in Britain to be exact. The term ‘café’ stems from the French for coffee or coffeehouse and the Italian tankless water heater ‘caffe,’ for the same. In the early 1800s the term “cafeteria” was coined in American English from Mexican Spanish to denote a coffee-store. But the café has been undergoing through an evolution over the centuries. Perhaps the earliest records of an establishment recognizable as a coffee house would be from the Ottoman Empire by a chronicler named Ibrahim Peçevi, who reported the opening of such in Istanbul in the year 1555. In Europe, the forerunners of the original coffee houses were the inns and monasteries that offered shelter and hospitality to weary metal detectors travelers since the twelfth century. Growth and development of urban populations during the fifteenth century led to the profusion of ‘cook shops’ particularly in the area of London’s Bread Street and East Cheap, where meal prices were controlled and the public could bring their own baked goods that were usually filled with what a little meat or vegetable they could afford. Oxford became the site of the supposed ‘first coffee house in Christendom.’ A Jew called Jacob settled there in 1650, bringing with him from abroad a ‘store of berries’ valued highly by his Turkish master. Two years later, a Greek servant named Pasqua Rosee started running a coffee shop in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill in the City of London. These coffee houses became such popular forums for discussion that they soon became known as ‘penny universities.’ By the time 1670 came around, the coffee house movement had surpassed, and become a key element of, Restoration London. By the 18th century, London was teeming with the the liquid said to resemble ‘syrup of soot or essence of old shoes’ and places to drink it in. From 1675, a thousand or so coffee houses flowered during the reigns of Charles II, Queen Anne and George I. By the 19th century on the other hand, coffee houses had become exclusive clubs as a prolific press and an efficient post and transport system undermined the function of the coffee houses as centers of communication. England cast off coffee as the demands of the East India Company to exchange its preferred stimulants pressed the domestic market into tea consumption. But due to the success of the Dutch camera stabilizers navy in the Pacific, tea became fashionable in the Dutch capital. As the craze for all things oriental swept Europe, tea became part of the national way of life and Dutch inns provided the first restaurant tea service as guests were furnished with portable tea sets complete with heating unit. The first tea samples reached England between 1652 and 1654 and proved popular enough to replace ale as the national drink. Tea mania swept across England as it had earlier spread throughout France and Holland. Beginning in the late 1880′s in both America and England, fine hotels began to offer tea service in tea rooms and tea courts. By 1910 hotels began to host afternoon tea dances as dance craze after dance craze swept the United States and England. Through this time, the English working classes mostly kept to the pub but the 19C coffee house hadn’t entirely died out. A few clung on as ‘workers’ cafés,’ described by one contemporary as: “dull and humble; they have sallow holland blinds, drawn deep down behind sallow window-sashes…” The 1880s temperance movement tried to revive the microdermabrasion coffee house scene in an attempt to divert the working man from the perils of drink. Fashioned after the mahogany-trimmed taverns promoted by the beer industry, ‘coffee taverns,’ one pamphlet stated, “must show there are beverages as comforting as beer, that there are beverages to be bought as cheap as beer.” The coffee taverns were largely overtaken in the 19th century by small establishments run mainly by Arabs, Turks, Greeks and Sicilians which had become the hard money lenders sc haunts of ‘foreigners’ as well as stray ‘Bohemians’.  Soho built on its traditional French, Italian and Spanish immigrant-center origins as a new generation of outsiders move into London. After WW2 an influx of Italian families building on their long established catering expertise settled in Clerkenwell (Little Italy), spread West to Soho and eventually expanded all over the capital and the country. Gradually, as Britain pulled through the travails of the post-war economy London rejuvenated. In 1945 Gaggia altered the espresso machine to create a high-pressure extraction that produced a thick layer of crema. By 1946 cappuccino had been christened for its resemblance to the color of the robes of the Capuchin monks. The unique selling point of the classic café had arrived. The Festival of Britain in 1951 signals an unequivocal move forward. Somehow, this feat of mass cultural re-engineering would impel the arts in Britain for the following decade and a half. In the 19th and 20th century, coffeehouses were commonly meeting point for writers and artists, across Europe. In America, coffee houses rose from the Italian coffee establishments of the Italian American immigrant communities centered around serving espresso and pastry.  From the late 1950s onward, these coffee houses also doubled as a venue for entertainment, most commonly folk performers. Both Greenwich Village and North Beach became major haunts of the Beats, who were very well identified with these coffee houses. Generally, before the 1990s, true coffee houses were not that popular in most American cities, apart from those located on or near college campuses, or in districts associated with writers, artists, or the counterculture. During this time the word ‘coffeeshop’ usually indicated family-style restaurants that served full meals, and of whose revenue coffee represented only a small portion. More recently that usage of the word has waned and now “coffeeshop” often refers to a true coffee house.