History of Coffee Podcast Series

Standart Magazine n.26, 2022

The history of coffee is not only of interest to aficionados of the beverage: it also constitutes a way to approach broader issues about 'decolonization' that have achieved prominence in the media over the last few years. Jonathan Morris, author of Coffee A Global History and Peter D'Sena - a leading advocate of the decolonization of education systems - explore concepts such as colonialism and coloniality in the context of coffee's past, and their significance to the industry today. Text by Jonathan Morris and Peter D'Sena Images by Linda Merad

Journal of the Osteopathic Family Physicians of California, 2023

Despite this initial controversy, coffee houses quickly became centers of social activity and communication in England's major cities,

The Owl Journal

The website WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com is currently selling coffee mugs with the slogan: “No American will ever pour coffee in this mug. Never!” Interviewed by the BBC, the website’s founder added: “And for our British customers, we hope to have ‘No British man will ever pour tea in this mug. Never!’ tea mugs available soon!”It is often forgotten that, although by the mid-20th century Englishmen were consuming about 5 times as many pounds of tea as coffee while Americans were consuming about 25 times as many pounds of coffee as tea, the English were really the world’s first coffee nation. Indeed, Macaulay in his History of England wrote that “Foreigners remarked that the coffee-house was that which especially distinguished London from all other cities…that the coffee-house was the Londoner’s home, and that those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked not whether he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow.”The very first coffee house in England opened in Oxford in 1650. Shortly afterward, in 1652, London’s first coffee house opened in St Michael’s Alley, Cornhill. The new drink soon became extremely popular, and by 1663 there were 82 coffee houses in London. By 1739 the number had risen to 551. But these first coffee houses bore little resemblance to the uniform, sanitised, Mochaccino-selling establishments that now crowd our high-streets...

September 29, 2015

A few weeks ago we spent time with our neighbor, a coffee grower by inheritance following his father's death. 1 He shared stories of what life is like as a farmer in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania-stories that seem to be the norm amongst third-world, coffee-producing countries. Our neighbor was reared on a coffee farm, his father a grower for over fifty years. Having grown coffee for so long, we were quite surprised to learn that his father had never actually tasted his coffee until a couple of years ago, before his death. This region is prime for arabica coffee, which is generally wet processed to maintain quality, but only for growers who have access to nearby washing stations. When coffee is processed in this way, like any dry beans submerged in water, the good ones sink and the bad ones float. The bad beans, those that float, are intended to be discarded. But these are the ones, our neighbor explained, that his father, as well as other farmers are able to keep aside for their own consumption. While we've all experienced a bad cup of coffee, whether poorly roasted or from low-quality beans, we've likely never drank from beans that should have been discarded. A couple of years before his father's death, our friend took aside some of the good beans and prepared a real cup of coffee for his father. The response was immediate and one that was filled with joy. His father could not believe this is what coffee tastes like. In all his years, he had never experienced coffee in such a way. Our friend said that when he thinks of this story, he cries for his father. So dependent upon the coffee demands of the West, farmers could not imagine ever tasting the real fruit of their labor. Coffee is a commodity. And as our friend's father once said, "the good beans are money."

Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, 2007

Coffee is so ubiquitous and coffeehouse culture so benign in twenty-first-century

Eidos, 2018

Coffee may have come to India with Baba Budan, but it truly struck root in the colonial period. With the British expanding coffee cultivation, they also created a new market: the rapidly Westernising upper castes in South India. In the profusion of terms that originate from that period - peaberry, plantation, arabica, robusta, chicory - we see how the bean became the focus of consumption, while the coffee house took on both socialist and conservative ambiences. After Independence and particularly Liberalisation in the 1990s, with the rise of American soft power, the coffee house becomes a stronghold of a Yuppie aesthetic, unapologetically liberal and capitalist in nature. But socio-economic outlook approach apart, the new language of coffee - cappuccino, americano, frappe, espresso, mocha - embodies a globalised outlook that transcends India's old faultlines of caste and region (though not class). On the way, we explore the way coffee has interacted with different generations.

Gastronomica, 2007

The social life of coffee : the emergence of the British coffeehouse / Brian Cowan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

PART ONE COFFEE CULTURE, SOCIAL LIFE, AND GLOBAL HISTORY 3 CHAPTER 1 CULTURE, CAFFEINE, AND COFFEE SHOPS The line at the coffee shop backs up to the door this weekday morning. Businessmen, university students, and office workers wait patiently (or not) to place their orders. I am seated at one of the small tables, checking my e-mail through the shop's free WiFi and drinking a delicious latté. Nearly all of the tables and easy chairs are occupied with individuals reading newspapers, couples talking, casually dressed young adults surfing the internet with their laptops, and small groups of people who appear to be professionals on a coffee break. Conversations create a quiet background murmur, and the shop maintains a comfortable ambience with stained wood décor, stylish wall art with a coffee theme, sofas and easy chairs around low coffee tables, and small circular tables with simple wooden chairs. Although a few customers choose tea, coffee is king here. Similar to most of the people in the shop, I want good, strong coffee in the morning.