Coffee’s Beginnings In Europe

Coffee’s gateway into Europe was through Turkey and specifically Constantinople-that-was, or Istanbul. There was a huge amount of trade between Italy and Constantinople and particularly to Venice.

Venetian merchants introduced coffee and made it a luxury item. It was expensive and initially difficult to get. Reportedly Pope Clement VIII blessed coffee as a beverage in the very early 1600s, a counterweight to calls to ban the heathen Muslim drink. Nevertheless, the first coffee house appeared in Italy in 1645 and coffee and Italy began a love affair that has never wavered ever since.

Surprisingly, a coffeehouse was opened in England very shortly after the first coffeehouse in Italy. The first coffeehouse in England was actually in Oxford, set up in 1650. In 1652, Pasqua Rosee, a native of Armenia, who was the servant of a merchant trading in Turkish goods, set up the first coffeeshop in London. Pasqua Rosee had a great deal of success with the coffeeshop. So much so that he also established the first French coffeeshop, twenty years later, in Paris. Amazingly enough, the Americas got a coffeeshop before France, with the first one set up in Boston in 1670.

Coffee gained a very rapid foothold with the intelligentsia in Europe. For example, the Cafe Procope, opened in Paris in 1686, was a major meeting place for the Enlightenment movement and was frequented by people like Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. The Cafe Procope is still open today. Similarly, in London Samuel Pepys and Daniel Defoe loved their coffee. Will’s Coffeehouse in Covent Garden in London was the meeting place of the Wits – Dryden, Pepys, Pope and others.

Vienna may have the most ‘romantic’ history with respect to coffee, however. The story is that Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, an Austrian officer, appropriated coffee beans left behind after the Austrians defeated the Turks at the Battle of Vienna. He is reported to be the person who started adding milk and sugar to coffee. However, there is also a claim that a Greek merchant called Johannes Diodato actually opened the first coffeehouse in Vienna.

To get some idea of the spread of coffee, there were reportedly over 500 coffeehouses in London by 1740, each with its own special niche, catering to different professions, political affiliations or attitudes.

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1. Early Coffee Growing And Consumption