Coffee culture

Coffee culture describes the traditions and social habits that form around drinking coffee, often serving as a way to connect with others. It also covers how coffee spread and became a common stimulant worldwide. By the late 1900s, espresso had grown into a key part of this culture, especially in Western countries and other urban areas. In the early 2000s, mobile coffee carts and pop-up espresso bars joined the scene, serving specialty drinks at markets, festivals, and retail events.

The link between coffee and coffeehouses goes back to 16th-century Ottoman Turkey. In Western Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, these places were not just social spots but also hubs for art and ideas. In late 17th- and 18th-century London, coffeehouses became popular meeting points for artists, writers, and socialites, as well as centers for politics and business. During the 1800s, Vienna developed its own coffeehouse culture, which then spread across Central Europe. Paris’s Les Deux Magots, now a tourist site, was once a hangout for intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Modern coffeehouses often feature slow, gourmet service, alternative brewing methods, and inviting decor.

In the United States, coffee culture often refers to the many espresso stands and coffee shops in cities, plus the growth of large international chains like Starbucks. Many of these shops offer free Wi-Fi, encouraging customers to work or do business there. Coffee culture varies by country, state, and city. In urban centers around the world, it’s common to see espresso shops within walking distance of each other, even on opposite corners of the same intersection. In business media, the term also describes the strong market impact of coffee-serving establishments.

**History**

The earliest coffee cultivation traces back to Ethiopia. Evidence of coffee drinking first appears in the late 1400s, when the Sufi shaykh Muhammad ibn Sa'id al-Dhabhani, Mufti of Aden, imported goods from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni Sufis drank coffee to help them concentrate while chanting God’s name. By 1414, the plant was known in Mecca, and by the early 1500s, it spread to Egypt and North Africa from the Yemeni port of Mokha. In the 1400s, coffee was used in the Ottoman Empire. In the early 1500s, conservative imams banned it, but a fatwa from Grand Mufti Ebussuud Efendi overturned that ban. Around this time, coffee plants moved from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and Persia. From the Middle East, coffee drinking spread to Italy, then the rest of Europe, and the Dutch transported plants to the East Indies and the Americas.

Within a year of the 1526 Battle of Mohács, coffee reached Vienna via the Turks. In Italy, coffee arrived in the late 1500s through Mediterranean trade routes. In 1580, Venetian botanist Prospero Alpini imported coffee into Venice from Egypt. England’s first coffeehouse opened in St. Michael’s Alley in Cornhill, London, run by Pasqua Rosée, servant of Turkish goods trader Daniel Edwards. By 1675, England had over 3,000 coffeehouses. In 1658, the Dutch began coffee cultivation in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and later in southern India, but they abandoned it to focus on Javanese plantations and avoid oversupply. Soon, Dutch colonies (Java in Asia, Suriname in the Americas) became Europe’s main coffee suppliers. The Dutch also introduced coffee to Japan in the 1600s, but it remained a curiosity until trade restrictions lifted in 1858 (the first European-style coffeehouse in Tokyo opened in 1888). Coffee reached India through Baba Budan, a Sufi saint who brought beans from Yemen to the hills of Chikmagalur, Karnataka, in 1670. Plantations later spread south to Kodagu.

In 1720, Gabriel de Clieu brought coffee seedlings to Martinique in the Caribbean. Those plants thrived, and 50 years later there were 18,680 coffee trees on the island, enabling cultivation to spread to Saint-Domingue (Haiti), Mexico, and other Caribbean islands. French Saint-Domingue began coffee cultivation in 1734, and by 1788 supplied half the world’s coffee. Coffee greatly shaped Latin America’s geography. For much of the 1800s and early 1900s, Brazil was the top producer and nearly a monopoly, but its policy of high prices opened opportunities for nations like Venezuela and Colombia. Worldwide production continues to rise as of 2021.

**Coffeehouses**

A coffeehouse, or café, is a place that mainly serves coffee and other drinks. Historically, cafés have been important social gathering spots in Europe and remain venues for interaction today. In the 1500s, coffeehouses in Mecca were temporarily banned due to fears they might spark political unrest. In 2016, Albania surpassed Spain as the country with the most coffeehouses per capita, with 654 per 100,000 people in a nation of just 2.5 million. Café culture in China has grown significantly; Shanghai alone has an espresso scene that continues to expand.