If you had a time machine, which year would you visit? And what would you drink while you were there…?

What if you traveled to Paris in 1748? – You could drink a Mocacchino made by Voltaire and enjoy his eccentricities. He was quite the character, and you would be sure to have an interesting time!

If you’re looking for a real adrenaline rush, there’s no better place than Vienna after the battle of 1683. You’ll witness the end of the Ottoman siege and the beginning of the coffee expansion. It’s an experience you won’t soon forget!

You can meet one of the most brilliant minds in history for just five dollars, Sir Isaac Newton. Just hop on to London in 1703, and you can sit down with the great man himself for a coffee and chat for just $5! It’s the perfect opportunity to pick his brain about his groundbreaking work in mathematics and physics.

From the French to the industrial revolution, Voltaire to Newton, there is one element in common. The pungent aroma of Coffee. But what does it contain to shake up history in the way it does?

Let’s go on a journey together and discover how coffee’s unique revolutionary personality was created through these three elements:

  • Caffeine
  • Coffeehouses
  • Luck

The new stimulant: How Coffee killed alcohol

When Voltaire was warned about the possible hazards of drinking too much Coffee, he answered: “Coffee Is a Slow Poison” “Slow It Must Be Indeed for I Have Sipped It for Seventy-Five Years.”1

The French enlightenment writer wasn’t the only European who loved coffee. In 1652, some curious scholars from Oxford welcomed the hot drink; a few months later, another coffeehouse opened in London2.

England soon became a nation of coffee lovers, as evidenced by the fact that, by the 1700s, there were more than 2,000 coffeehouses in London alone!2

The stimulant had succeeded in conquering the demanding European palate, changing the continent and the world forever. From there, it wasn’t long before coffeehouses began popping up all over the place. Soon, people were gathering to discuss the day’s news, talk about politics, and debate the day’s big issues. In short, coffee changed everything3.

How did coffee change everything? Well, for starters, it woke us up this morning. But coffee has also been responsible for some pretty big events in history. For example, coffee was a big part of the Enlightenment. At that time, people would go to coffeehouses to discuss ideas and share news. It was kind of Facebook, but in real life and without all the cat videos4.

So how did it change it?

Before coffee, alcohol was king. Water was essential for survival, and so was back in Medieval Europe. However, the water back then was filled with bacteria and parasites, so the best option was to drink liquor instead. People learned this vital advice after suffering through severe cholera pandemics5.

When Europeans first started drinking alcohol, they probably thought, “this is great; we can drink all day and not get tired!” But after a few days of this, they realized that maybe this wasn’t the best idea. They needed something to help them sober up and focus, and that’s where caffeine came in5.

Like a drug, caffeine is addictive and causes psychological effects, but it doesn’t provide nutritional support or energy, contrary to popular belief6.

Caffeine is like that friend who tells you to keep going when you’re exhausted. It tricks your brain into thinking you’re not tired, so you keep going and going until you finally crash.

Wherever Coffee arrived, it was like a shot of adrenaline to the brain. Meaningless disputes that were stirred up by the drink became provoking conversations, and ideas that were asleep were awakened by Coffee7.

If you want to read an example of someone good at thinking up witty and insightful things, you can google Voltaire.

Among his numerous critiques of religion and monarchy, the French revolution architect blamed Philippe II, an important royal family member, for incest with his daughter. The ruler answered by sending him to prison for 11 months8.

After a few years of being free, Voltaire got into a quarrel with another nobleman. The aristocrat was about to send him back to the Bastille but instead agreed to let him be exiled to England(Pomeau, R. H. (2021, May 26). Voltaire: French philosopher and author. Retrieved from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Voltaire)).

After seven years in the UK, he came back to France. Still provoking but more cautious, Voltaire became famous for a different trait besides his daring attitude, being a passionate coffee drinker. Some inhabitants even said he could drink up to 50 cups of Coffee a day(Pomeau, R. H. (2021, May 26). Voltaire: French philosopher and author. Retrieved from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Voltaire)).

In Voltaire’s sober life and many others, people saw a role model and the way to do it in coffee. The drunk men emerged as unpleasant, and lucid coffee thinkers and workers became the standard 9.

You could say that coffee is the sobering-up tonic of the working world. It helps you to become more productive, efficient, and less grumpy. Like Voltaire was a role model for many, coffee has become the standard for the modern-day worker1.

As you know, the French Revolution was a watershed moment in European history. But did you know that it also profoundly impacted the world of coffee? Before the French Revolution, coffee was a symbol of decadence and luxury. But after the revolution, coffee became the drink of choice for those who sought to emulate the sober lifestyle of the new French ruling class. In many ways, you could say that coffee ousted alcohol as the beverage of choice for those who wanted to be seen as respectable members of society10.

The search for a more sober lifestyle was followed by a change in addictions. But this time, instead of alcohol, coffee was boosting ideas and, more important, conversations5.

Between staggering Ideas and off-limit debates: the undefeated coffeehouses

Coffee has its power in caffeine, but it wouldn’t have become one of the most popular drinks in the world without coffeehouses. You could have met soldiers like the Janissaries, writers like Balzac, and scientists like Newton.

Cafés have always been more than just a place to get a cup of coffee. They’ve been a meeting place for friends, a workspace for artists and writers, and a hub for social and political activism. In fact, many of the world’s most influential ideas and movements were born in cafés. Here’s a look at some of the most famous cafés throughout history and the important role they’ve played in shaping the world as we know it11.

The New Spice of the Ottoman Empire

The first café is believed to have opened in Constantinople in 1554. At the time, coffee was a new and exotic drink, and cafés quickly became popular gathering places for people to try it. From Constantinople, the café culture spread to other parts of the Ottoman Empire, and then to Europe in the 1600s11.

The black bean expansion in the world started with the Ottoman Empire. During its power, the Turkish state ruled from the Hungarian goulash to the kebab in Bagdad11.

Coffee houses were the place to be seen in all the Ottoman territories, especially in Istanbul. They were their time’s social media hot spots, where people gathered to catch up on the latest news and gossip. Just like today, people go to coffee houses to relax and escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life11.

Although revolutions and exciting ideas in Turkish cafés aren’t as famous as the European ones, the spiced Coffee also witnessed many spine-tingling conversations. Some even ended in blood, and one with the Sultan’s death11.

During the XVII century, the Ottoman Empire made multiple attempts to conquer the Polish Kingdom but failed every time. Finally, Sultan Osman II decided to discipline the empire’s elite troops, the Janissaries, to make them more effective in battle12.

Janissaries were the Sultan’s bodyguards, a lethal elite troop famous for the Capture of Constantinople. They were like the Navy SEALs of their day – highly trained, disciplined, and absolutely deadly. However, the Janissaries became more like a government bureaucracy over time. They started accruing benefits and perks, and their discipline and training slackened12.

Sultan Osman II’s heir, Murad IV really didn’t like coffee drinkers and thought that coffee consumption should be punishable by death11.

A Cup of Revolution: The Importance of Cafés in French History

When French people tasted Coffee for the first time, they were like, “Bleh! This is gross!”; it was too bitter!.

The Turkish ambassador, Soliman Aga, introduced the drink to the French nobility in 1669. Besides its flavor, taverns were a critical commonplace, and they didn’t have room for Coffee10.

Only later, in 1686, Procopio Dei Coltelli set up a new type of establishment. He called it “Le Procope.” A few but crucial details set the Parisian café apart from its Ottoman counterparts:

  • Refined furnished.
  • The cafe was served to the table.
  • The lookouts to the street.
  • Procopio also changed the way of making Coffee into a more diluted one making it acceptable before the French nobility and bourgeoisie.

In the following years, coffeehouses became more popular thanks to:

  • They were legally easier to start than taverns.
  • You could meet people from many classes thanks to a more egalitarian structure.
  • You were not bothered by drunk men.

Coffeehouses were the Gossip Girl of the 1700s. They were a place where the French could meet new people and discuss the latest periodicals. Business people preferred coffeehouses over taverns because they were not distracted by the quarrels that often involved alcohol4.

Coffee is becoming more and more popular, and it’s starting to replace wine and beer. Now the French have a safe-boiled drink that they can enjoy, which also keeps them alert4.

It didn’t take long for some people to realize that the political situation was dire and that they needed to take action13.

Cafés have always been popular places for people to gather and chat. In fact, many revolutions started in cafés, like political gossip and powerful ideas13.

French revolution figures like Maximilien Robespierre and Georges Jacques Danton could be found in cafés and many doubt they could have got into history books without the black drink13.

During the French Revolution in the late 18th century, cafés were an important gathering place for political activists and revolutionaries. They were a place where people could discuss new ideas and plan their next steps. And after the Revolution, cafés continued to play an important role in French politics and culture13.

British coffeehouses and Penny universities: between critics, science, and gossip.

In 1650, the first café in England opened in Oxford. It wasn’t long before cafés started popping up all over the country, becoming popular gathering places for artists, writers, and intellectuals. In the 18th century, cafés became an important part of the Enlightenment, a period of philosophical and intellectual exploration4.

Before the British were into black tea, they were passionate about another dark brew. Contrary to popular belief, the first successful European coffeehouse didn’t open in Vienna or any other country closer to the Ottoman Empire. In fact, it was London where this new fad began4.

Why England and not Viena, for instance?

If you wanted to start a business in Europe in the 1650s, the United Kingdom was the place to be. While you could open a shop with just a document in the UK, you needed to ask the king himself for permission in Italy3.

Welcome to the 17th century! We’ve just come out of a civil war that left our king dead, and things are feeling pretty uncertain. But don’t worry; the first coffee houses have popped up in Oxford and London to help relieve the tension and provide a public place for men to debate2.

A few years later, King Charles II looked askance at the political “gossip” that originated in the coffeehouses and attempted to ban them. However, his ministers didn’t let him and informed him that his supporters were also clients of such establishments. His ministers explained that coffeehouses were actually quite popular and that people of all political backgrounds went there to drink coffee and chat2.

Coffeehouses were the happening places to be in 1700s London. It was the place to see and be seen. If you were anyone important, you gathered at the coffeehouse to read the newspaper, and debate politics, art, and science2.

Coffeehouses in eighteenth-century British society were likened to “centers of criticism” by german philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas in his study: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. He points to the cafés as a communal place, the first of its kind, where public opinion was created and documented freely2.

Coffeehouses in the past were sometimes called “penny universities” because you could get a lot of education and intellectual stimulation for just the price of a cup of coffee4.

To better understand the atmosphere of these penny universities, we can go back in time and see through the eyes of a Scottish traveler how coffeehouses served different types of customers:

  • Young Man’s: Army officers
  • Little man’s: Card Sharpers
  • Hamlin’s: theological debate
  • Batson’s: concerned with the prices of pepper, saltpeter, and indigo (trading)
  • Daniel’s: births, pedigrees, and descents (they talked about lineage)
  • cocoa-tree: Political opinions, stories, 
  • Osinda’s: Political opinions, stories, 
  • Saint James’s: Whigs
  • Grecian Coffee House: Whigs, Royal Society like Isaac Newton
  • Will’s Coffee House: poets John Dryden, Alexander Pope and writer Jonathan Swift
  • Jonathan’s Coffee House: trading stocks, stockbrokers crowded around to trade shares after official trading hours
  • Garraways: trading stocks

Although any well-bred man, independently of his status, was welcome to drink a coffee and participate in the discussion, there were some exceptions2.

An excellent example was the Grecian coffeehouse, where both Whigs and the royal society held exclusive meetings. Alongside lectures in math and astronomy, the Grecian members also carried out some pretty intense debates. On one occasion, they even ended up dissecting a dolphin (Newton was totally involved in that one)2.

Lloyd’s of London didn’t start as an insurance company; it began as a coffeehouse where people went to get the latest news on ships. Founded in 1688 by Edward Lloyd, it quickly became popular with captains, traders, and ship owners. It wasn’t long before Lloyd started using such information to sell insurance2.

Not far from Lloyd’s, two coffee shops: Garraway’s and Jonathan’s, became popular for trading stocks, particularly among those who couldn’t do it officially in the Royal Exchange. It was the equivalent of Wall Street but with better coffee4.

Jonathan’s coffeehouse, founded in 1680, was the place to be if you wanted to discuss the latest securities. In 1698, they took it a step forward and published the prices of different securities; this was the origin of the London Stock exchange2.

May The Odds Be Ever In Coffee’s Favor

  • 1,497: Coffee from the port of Zeila (between current Somalia and Djibouti).
  • 1,540’s: Coffee from the ports of Mocha and Hudaydah in Yemen.
  • 1,690’s: Coffee arrived in Java (Indonesia). Introduced by Dutch Colonists with the assistance of Muslim Pilgrims.
  • 1,712: Coffee was planted in Guiana (Suriname) by the VOC.
  • 1,715: Coffee was introduced to the island of Bourbon (Réunion) by the French East India Company.
  • 1,715: The French transplanted coffee plants in St. Dominique (Haiti).
  • 1,723: The French transplanted coffee plants in Martinique.
  • 1,804: With the independence of St. Dominique, European powers sought other potential locations for coffee supply.
  • 1,815: British authorities began expanding coffee production in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) after taking controlssive and cheap coffee plantations and production.

(Clarence Smith & Topik, 2003, p. 30)3

The first signs that coffee drinking was acquiring an audience beyond the elite classes came in the Netherlands, where the proportion of the sales of the Dutch East India Company (VOC, from its name in Dutch) derived from tea and coffee rose from just over 4 percent at the end of the seventeenth century to just under 25 percent at the end of the 1730s. In terms of revenue generated, this amounted to a 1,312-fold increase, a figure that does not capture the full extent of the increase of tea and coffee imported via Amsterdam, given that unit prices fell significantly over this period. Extensive research into probate records confirms that the habit of coffee drinking spread deep into Dutch society; many poor households possessed coffee paraphernalia3.

  1. Walton, G. (2019, May 27). Voltaire’s Coffee Obsession in the 18th Century. Retrieved from Geri Walton: Unique histories from the 18th and 19th centuries: https://www.geriwalton.com/voltaires-coffee-obsession/[↩][↩]
  2. Harris, J. (2013, November 29). The Grecian Coffee House and Political Debate in London 1688–1714. Retrieved from The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present: https://doi.org/10.1179/ldn.2000.25.1.1[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
  3. Thurston, R. W., Morris, J., & Steiman, S. (2013). Coffee : A Comprehensive Guide to the Bean, the Beverage, and the Industry. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.[↩][↩][↩][↩]
  4. Fichman, I. (Producer), & Angelico, I. (Director). (2005). Black Coffee [Motion Picture].[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
  5. Topik, S. (2009, Winter). Coffee as a Social Drug. Retrieved from University of Minnesota Press: Cultural Critique: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25475502[↩][↩][↩]
  6. DiSalvo, D. (2018, June 29). Three Things Caffeine Does In Your Brain. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2018/06/29/three-things-caffeine-does-in-your-brain/?sh=fc2be1f1876f[↩]
  7. Goodman, B. A. (Ed.). (2012). Coffee Consumption and Health. New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.[↩]
  8. Pomeau, R. H. (2021, May 26). Voltaire: French philosopher and author. Retrieved from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Voltaire[↩]
  9. Skog, O.-J. (2006, September). Studying Cultural Change: Were the Changes in Alcohol and Coffee Consumption in the Nineteenth Century a Case of Beverage Substitution? Retrieved from Sage Publications, Ltd.: Acta Sociologica: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20459941[↩]
  10. Standart. (2021). A History of Coffee in Paris. Retrieved from Standart Magazine: https://standartmag.com/blogs/journal/paris-city-guide[↩][↩]
  11. Collaco, G. (2011, Fall). The Ottoman Coffeehouse: All the Charms and Dangers of Commonality in the 16th-17th Century. Retrieved from Academia: https://www.academia.edu/1123874/_The_Ottoman_Coffeehouse_All_the_Charms_and_Dangers_of_Commonality_in_the_16th-17th_Centuries_Lights_The_MESSA_Journal_A_University_of_Chicago_Graduate_Publication_1_No._1_Fall_2011_61-71[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
  12. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, August 5). Janissary: Turkish military. Retrieved from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Janissary[↩][↩]
  13. Bonilla Cazarin, L. R. (2006). Los cafés y las revoluciones sociales. Hospitalidad ESDAI, 125-137.[↩][↩][↩][↩]