Coffee culture
Coffee culture is the set of traditions and social behaviors that surround the consumption of coffee, particularly as a social lubricant. The term also refers to the cultural diffusion and adoption of coffee as a widely consumed stimulant. In the late 20th century, espresso became an increasingly dominant drink contributing to coffee culture, particularly in the Western world and other urbanized regions worldwide. In the early 21st century, mobile coffee carts and pop-up espresso bars also became part of coffee culture, offering specialty drinks at markets, festivals, and retail events.
The culture surrounding coffee and coffeehouses dates back to 16th-century Ottoman Turkey. Coffeehouses in Western Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean were not only social hubs but also artistic and intellectual centres. In the late 17th and 18th centuries, coffeehouses in London became popular meeting places for artists, writers, and socialites, as well as centres for political and commercial activity. In the 19th century, a special coffee house culture developed in Vienna, the Viennese coffee house, which then spread throughout Central Europe. Les Deux Magots in Paris, now a popular tourist attraction, was once associated with the intellectuals Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Elements of modern coffeehouses include slow-paced gourmet service, alternative brewing techniques, and inviting decor.
In the United States, coffee culture often describes the ubiquitous presence of espresso stands and coffee shops in metropolitan areas and the spread of massive, international franchises such as Starbucks. Many coffee shops offer customers access to free wireless internet, encouraging business or personal work at these locations. Coffee culture varies by country, state, and city.
In urban centres worldwide, it is not unusual to see espresso shops and stands within walking distance of one another or on opposite corners of the same intersection. The term coffee culture is also used in popular business media to describe the deep impact of the market penetration of coffee-serving establishments.
History
The earliest-grown coffee can be traced from Ethiopia. Evidence of knowledge of the coffee tree and coffee drinking first appeared in the late 15th century; the Sufi shaykh Muhammad ibn Sa'id al-Dhabhani, the Mufti of Aden, is known to have imported goods from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni sufis drank coffee to help in concentration when they chanted the name of God.By 1414, the plant was known in Mecca, and in the early 16th century was spreading to the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and North Africa from the Yemeni port of Mokha.
During the 15th century, coffee was known to be a beverage used in the Ottoman Empire. Later, in the early 16th century coffee was forbidden by conservative imams but a fatwa by the Grand Mufti Ebussuud Efendi overturned this ban. Also during this period, coffee plants spread from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and Persia. From the Middle East, coffee drinking spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, and coffee plants were transported by the Dutch to the East Indies and to the Americas.
Within a year of the Battle of Mohacs, coffee had reached Vienna by Turks. In Italy, like in most of Europe, coffee arrived in the second half of the 16th century through the commercial routes of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1580 the Venetian botanist and physician Prospero Alpini imported coffee into the Republic of Venice from Egypt. The first coffeehouse in England was opened in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill, London. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the servant of Daniel Edwards, a trader in Turkish goods. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses throughout England.
In 1658 the Dutch first used them to begin coffee cultivation in Ceylon and later in southern India; but abandoned this cultivation to focus on their Javanese plantations in order to avoid lowering the price by oversupply. Within a few years, the Dutch colonies had become the main suppliers of coffee to Europe. The Dutch also introduced it to Japan in the 17th century, it remained a curiosity until the lifting of trade restrictions in 1858. Coffee also came to India from Baba Budan, a Sufi saint who introduced coffee beans from Yemen to the hills of Chikmagalur, Karnataka, in 1670. Since then coffee plantations have become established in the region, extending south to Kodagu.
Gabriel de Clieu brought coffee seedlings to Martinique in the Caribbean in 1720. Those sprouts flourished and 50 years later there were 18,680 coffee trees in Martinique enabling the spread of coffee cultivation to Saint-Domingue, Mexico and other islands of the Caribbean. The French territory of Saint-Domingue saw coffee cultivated starting in 1734, and by 1788 supplied half the world's coffee. Coffee had a major influence on the geography of Latin America. For many decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazil was the biggest producer of coffee and a virtual monopolist in the trade. However, a policy of maintaining high prices soon opened opportunities to other nations, such as Venezuela and Colombia. Worldwide production is increasing as of 2021.
Coffeehouses
A coffeehouse or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee, as well as other beverages. Historically, cafés have been important social gathering places in Europe, and continue to be venues of social interaction today. During the 16th century, coffeehouses were temporarily banned in Mecca due to a fear that they attracted political uprising.In 2016, Albania surpassed Spain as the country with the most coffeehouses per capita in the world. In fact, there are 654 coffeehouses per 100,000 inhabitants in Albania; a country with only 2.5 million inhabitants.
Café culture in China has multiplied over the years: Shanghai alone has an estimated 6,500 coffeehouses, including small chains and larger corporations like Starbucks.
Additionally, Seoul, South Korea, has a high concentration of coffeehouses. There was a 900% rise in coffee shops between 2006 and 2011, as well as an 1800% rise in national sales during this same time. There is a coffee Expo in Seoul that attracts many buyers and sellers, and continues to promote the growth of coffee within South Korea.
In addition to coffee, many cafés also serve tea, sandwiches, pastries, and other light refreshments. Some cafés provide other services, such as wired or wireless internet access for their customers. This has also spread to a type of café known as the LAN Café, which allows users to have access to computers that already have PC games installed.
Social aspects
Many social aspects of coffee can be seen in the modern-day lifestyle. By absolute volume, the United States is the largest market for coffee, followed by Germany and Japan, with Canada, Australia, Sweden and New Zealand also being large coffee-consuming countries. Countries in Northern and Western Europe consume the most coffee per capita, with Finland typically occupying the top spot with a per-capita consumption of per year, followed by Norway, Iceland, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Sweden. Consumption has vastly increased in recent years in the traditionally tea-drinking United Kingdom, but is still below per person per year as of 2005. Turkish coffee is popular in Turkey, the Eastern Mediterranean, and southeastern Europe.File:20140402 sanmarco gallery 005 web.jpg|thumb|left|Caffè San Marco in Trieste, known for its artists, writers and intellectualsCoffeehouse culture had a strong cultural penetration in much of the former Ottoman Empire, where Turkish coffee remains the dominant style of preparation. The coffee enjoyed in the Ottoman Middle East was produced in Yemen/Ethiopia, despite multiple attempts to ban the substance for its stimulating qualities. By 1600, coffee and coffeehouses were a prominent feature of Ottoman life. There are various scholarly perspectives on the functions of the Ottoman coffeehouse. Many of these argue that Ottoman coffeehouses were centres of important social ritual, making them as, or more important than, the coffee itself. "At the start of the modern age, the coffeehouses were places for renegotiating the social hierarchy and for challenging the social order". Throughout the existence of the coffeehouse, banning of women from the houses was quite prevalent. They were banned from visiting them in England however; they often frequented them in parts of Germany. The ban may have been due to the 1674 "Women's Petition Against Coffee" which stated:
Coffee has been important in Austrian and French culture since the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Vienna's coffeehouses are prominent in Viennese culture and known internationally, while Paris was instrumental in the development of "café society" in the first half of the 20th century.
The Viennese coffee house culture then spread across Central Europe. Scientists and artists met in the special microcosm of the Viennese coffee houses of the Habsburg Empire. The artists, musicians, intellectuals, bon vivants and their financiers met in the coffee house and discussed new projects, theories and worldviews. A lot of information was also obtained in the coffee house, because local and foreign newspapers were freely available to all guests. This multicultural atmosphere and culture was largely destroyed by the later National Socialism and Communism and only persisted in individual places that remained in the slipstream of history, such as Vienna or Trieste. Trieste in particular was and is an important point of reference in terms of coffee culture, because it is the most important port and processing location for coffee in Central Europe and Italy. In this diverse coffee house culture of the multicultural Habsburg Empire, various types of coffee preparation also developed. This is how the world-famous cappuccino developed from the Viennese Kapuziner coffee via the Italian-speaking parts of the empire in northern Italy.
In France, coffee consumption is also often viewed as a social activity and exists largely within the café culture. Espresso based drinks, including but not limited to café au lait and caffè crema, are most popular within modern French coffee culture.
File:Coffee and Cheesecake.jpg|thumb|A cup of coffee with cheesecake at a cafe in Helsinki, FinlandNotably in Northern Europe, coffee parties are a popular form of entertainment. The host or hostess of the coffee party also serves cake and pastries, which are sometimes homemade. In Germany, Netherlands, Austria, and the Nordic countries, strong black coffee is also regularly consumed during or immediately after main meals such as lunch and dinner and several times a day at work or school. In these countries, especially Germany and Sweden, restaurants and cafés will often provide free refills of black coffee, especially if customers purchase a sweet treat or pastry with their drink. In the United States, coffee shops are typically used as meeting spots for business, and are frequented as dating spots for young adults.
Coffee has played a large role in history and literature because of the effects of the industry on cultures where it is produced and consumed. Coffee is often regarded as one of the primary economic goods used in imperial control of trade. The colonised trade patterns in goods, such as slaves, coffee, and sugar, defined Brazilian trade for centuries. Coffee in culture or trade is a central theme and prominently referenced in poetry, fiction, and regional history.