Spread of coffee consumption throughout Europe

Spread of coffee consumption throughout Europe
Coffee consumption rapidly spread to the French-speaking cantons of Switzerland and then to the rests of that country after taking hold of France.

Cafés were extremely successful in Italy during the 18th century. There were for example, 206 cafés in Venice (where the first coffee house in Europe is said to have opened in 1645), 40 in Padua, and many others in Rome, Florence, Turin and Naples.

At that time, the Italians were already drinking concentrated and very sweet coffee, “caffe ristretto”.

In Venice, the first big cafes at the end of the 17th century were the Florian and the Quadri in Saint-Mark’s Square.

Starting around 1700, Austria and the Scandinavia countries became big customers of coffee.

The first two Swedish coffeehouses were opened in Stockholm in 1690. In 1671, Fauste Nauron of Syria, a Maronite and professor of Oriental languages in Rome, wrote in Latin the first treatise in coffee.

Cultivation of coffee trees outside of the Middle East began only at the start of the 17th century.

Dutch merchants imported the first coffee plant into Holland from Mocha in 1616.

The coffee trees were cultivated in Ceylon in 1658 and in Java in 1696. The plants of Coffea Arabica imported from Arabia were destroyed by a flood but the cuttings imported in 1699 from Malabar into Java were the origin for all the coffee trees of the East Indies as well as those of the botanical gardens of Amsterdam; from there they were eventually exported to most of the botanical gardens of Europe.

A first but unsuccessfully planting took place in Dijon in 1670. In 1713, new attempts at transplanting coffee trees from Amsterdam to Paris were once again failures.

In 1714, the burgomaster of Amsterdam offered several coffee tree plants to King Louis XIV who entrusted them to Antoine de Jussieu, director of the botanical gardens.

These plants were the ancestor of coffee plants of the former French colonies and of part of Latin America.
Spread of coffee consumption throughout Europe

History: Spread of Coffee Consumption England and France

History: Spread of Coffee Consumption England and France
Around 1580 a physician and renowned botanist Prosper Alpin, who was director of a botanical garden of European plants in Padua (Italy) spent four years in Egypt where he accompanied the Consul of the Republic of Venice.

He studied Egyptian flora and described the coffee tree in his work Plants of Egypt published in Venice in 1592.

He noted that the coffee tree produces a fruit called bon or ban and “that Arabs and Egyptians use it to make a kind of infusion that is popular and that they drink in place of wine. This beverage is called caoua.”

In 1615, Venetian merchants who had come to appreciate the qualities of coffee in Istanbul imported from Mocha into Europe.

In 1660, the first shipment of coffee coming from Alexandria arrived in Marseille and the first coffeehouse there was opened in 1670.

For a short time, Marseille supplied the coffee for all of Europe.

The first coffeehouses were opened in Oxford, England in 1650, in London on 1652, and in Hamburg, Germany in 1677.

However, in 1643 there was already a tavern where coffee was consumed in North America, in the city of New Amsterdam at the site of the present Broadway of New York City.

This café was probably the most famous one in New York, the City Tavern which is presently the Fraunces Tavern.

Many coffeehouses were set up in North America during the 18th century.

In France, the ambassador of the Ottoman Empire, Soliman Aga, who arrived in Paris in 1669, offered coffee to all his guest and thus introduced it to the court and to the French High Society.

In Paris at the Saint-Germain Fair of 1672, an Armenian named Pascal opened the first public café which was called House of Caova that he later transferred to the quai du Lourve.

In 1689, an Italian named Procopio opened a deluxe café which is presently the Procope restaurant in the VIth district of Paris, 13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comedie.

Coffee consumption became widespread at Court during the reign of Louis the XVth. In order to please Madame Du Barry the King was said to have spent fifteen thousand pounds per year “for the good pleasure if these ladies”.

It is at this this time that coffee became popular throughout France.
History: Spread of Coffee Consumption England and France

Coffee Consumption in History

Coffee Consumption in History
It seems that coffee was brought from Ethiopia to the Middle East around the year 575, and was cultivated in Yemen near the port of Mocha. Starting in the 8th century, the Arabs prepared coffee as an infusion, and the practice of drying and roasting the grains began only in the 14th century. In the 15th century, coffee consumption was introduced into Aden by Mufti Gemaleddin Abou Abdallah who during his trip to Persia heard about the wonderful effects of an infusion. His strength was restored and he reported that it “made him light-headed, brightened his spirits, and delayed the onset of sleep”.

The habit of drinking coffee spread form Aden to Mecca, Medina, Cairo and Alexandria, to Persia as well as Aleppo, Damascus, and Istanbul. Arab armies introduced the habit of drinking coffee into all the countries that they conquered: the Balkans, Spain and North Africa.

Up until the 16th century, the Arabs tried so hard to maintain their monopoly of coffee production that travelers from other countries never even mentioned coffee in the accounts of their trips. The crusaders made no mention of coffee upon their return to the western world.
In 1555, Schems and Hekem, Syrians coming from Damascus and Aleppo, opened the first two public cafes in Istanbul. Their client – pots, scholars, gamblers – ensured their success in such a sort times that Turks merchants quickly opened up several other shops.

However, it was impossible for Arabs to maintain absolute control over the comings and goings of great numbers of travelers, especially during pilgrimage to the Mecca. One of the pilgrims from India succeeded in bringing back to Mysore seeds from the coffee tree. He planted them in front of his hut in the mountains of Mysore in India. From here the seeds were the source of all of the coffee trees in this region.
Coffee Consumption in History