It was the smell that got me hooked; the smell of weekends, with both parents around; the smell of laughter and conversation. But though both simultaneously soothing and exciting to the senses, it was never a necessity; it was the shared experience, the communal aspect, that kept me within it’s grasp.
Just as I appreciate it’s associations with company, the origins of drinking coffee show that it was something that was done outside the home. While coffee shops are a central element of European culture, (Viennese kaffeehäuser have been deemed an intangible cultural heritage element by UNESCO) Europeans, including Italians and Greeks, owe their rich coffee customs to sharing the Mediterranean with the Arab and African worlds.
Coffee was once considered exotic and even feared ‘an Eastern thing‘ – in that Orientalist way of thinking and an official approval from Pope Clement VIII was even necessary in 1600 to clear coffee’s dangerous connotations. It is claimed that his advisors pressured him to denounce the drink, referring to it as “a bitter invention of Satan.” Upon tasting it himself, he is reported to have remarked “This devil’s drink is so delicious… we should cheat the devil by baptising it!”
In 1889, Emperor Menilek II of Ethiopia, where the seeds of Coffea, which are dried, roasted and ground to make coffee, originate from, described it as an Ethiopian drink (originating in approximately 850 AD), thus a Christian drink, despite the Ethiopian Orthodox Church banning coffee in the 12th century.
From Ethiopia, coffee beans quickly spread with the help of Yemeni traders to Mecca and Medina, Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and finally Istanbul (after the fall of Constantinople). Two travellers from Aleppo and Damascus reportedly opened the first coffeehouse in Istanbul. It became so popular that it spread across to the East Indies, Indonesia and to the Americas.
In its early stages, even in the Muslim world coffee was considered intoxicating, thus also banned by imams at a theological court in Mecca in 1511. Their primary concern, however, was the political sentiments exchanged in coffee houses and the threat of these discussions challenging the current rule. Only thirteen years later the Ottoman Turkish Sultan, Suleiman I (the Magnificent) ordered the ban be overruled, because the hot beverage was just so popular. According to a local proverb, Turkish coffee should be “black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love”.
Coffee house scene, Istanbul, 1905.
Coffee houses became a place for news, politics, and intellectual thought expressed over hot coffee and table games such as backgammon (tavla), checkers and chess. Walking through little towns in former Ottoman districts, you will notice an array of coffee shops, but there is usually one main one, in the centre of the town overlooking the main buildings, possibly the market, or more commonly, the main political establishment, mosque, or church. Coffee houses were places where men would sit (the establishments were reserved for men) and discuss the politics of the town, while watching as people went about their daily tasks.
In Europe, coffee culture was established a little later; Paris and Vienna were first to be introduced to the beverage, in very different ways, by the Ottomans.
In Paris, Suleiman Aga, an Ottoman ambassador to the French king Louis XIV, held lavish parties while in the city on official business, introducing Parisian society to both Turkish culture and coffee. The first French coffee shop, the Café Procope, opened in 1689.
Vienna’s first taste was a little different; the story goes that mysterious sacks of green beans were left behind when the Ottomans were defeated at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. No one recognised the beans for what they were, assuming they were food for camels. A Polish born spy of Ruthenian descent, who spoke numerous languages, including Turkish, was the first to recognise the precious beans for what they were. Some have argued that this notorious spy was in fact, a Serb, as he lived for prolonged periods in Belgrade and Istanbul spying on the Turkish military. Others argue that it was actually an Armenian spy who opened the first coffee house in Vienna. All the same, both men are said to have added cream and sweeteners to “soften” the strong taste.
Like many things, the rich beverage and coffee culture of Europe, which is now so central to it’s identity, did not originate on the European continent. With roots in East Africa, coffee spread throughout north Africa and the Middle East, establishing itself as the ‘Nectar of Poets‘, before it was embraced by Europe as its own. The irony that it was the Ottomans, the great historic ‘foe’ who introduced Europe to what would become a great love affair, should not go unnoticed.
