Café

A café is a small establishment that serves drinks such as coffee and simple food items, often sandwiches and pastries. Cafés are also known as coffeehouses or coffee shops. They emerged in the fifteen century, eventually becoming meeting places for intellectuals to debate various current events of the times. In the years that followed, the conversation and companionship sought at cafés became more important than the coffee itself. These meeting spots eventually transformed into establishments for artists, musicians, and writers. In the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, specialized drinks such as lattes and cappuccinos replaced plain coffee, and conversation with strangers became nonexistent as people instead turned to laptop computers, tablets, cell phones, and other electronic devices for entertainment.

History

Drinking coffee became popular in the fifteenth century in the Arabian Peninsula, where the beans were roasted and then brewed as a beverage. The first cafés emerged in the sixteenth century in the Middle East and Ottoman Empire. Patrons who frequented these establishments typically debated various political issues or told stories as they sipped coffee.

The first European café opened in 1629 in Venice, Italy. A Greek man named Pasqua Roseé opened England's first café in Oxford in 1652. Roseé imported Turkish coffee to Europe. Coffee shops became very popular, and during the seventeenth century, numerous people began to copy the idea for the café model. These coffee shops quickly became the place for people to gather to discuss and debate issues. These intellectuals had formerly met at taverns but found these establishments too loud and rowdy. They preferred a more relaxed and quiet environment to discuss ideas. They also enjoyed the effects of caffeine in the coffee, which helped them stay awake long hours, compared to beer, which made them drowsy.

While cafés were very popular, not everyone favored them. Some groups unsuccessfully tried to ban them and force them to close. A group of women began a petition in 1674 against cafés because they felt their husbands spent too much time in them. (Women did not patronize coffeehouses during this time.) Even Charles II expressed disdain for cafés.

In 1686, a former solider named Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki opened the first café in Vienna, Austria. He used Turkish coffee beans brought to the area during the 1683 Battle of Vienna. Kulczycki became the first person to serve coffee with milk, and Viennese coffee became known worldwide and duplicated.

By this time, the Enlightenment had begun, and cafés became the favorite meeting places for well-known thinkers of the time to gather and discuss ideas. Philosophers such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were among those who frequented the Café Procope, which opened in Paris, France, in 1686.

Around this time, many cafés began to offer other services and sell items unrelated to coffee. Lloyd's Coffee House in London sold marine insurance in 1688. It eventually stopped offering coffee and focused on selling insurance instead. Jonathan's Coffee-House, which provided lists of stock and commodity prices, was the origins of the London Stock Exchange in the late seventeenth century. Auction houses such as Christie's and Sotheby's began as cafés. Some physicians even used coffee houses for patient consults.

In the early years of the eighteenth century, cafés became common gathering places for poets, playwrights, and journalists to write and discuss their work. However, by the middle of the eighteenth century, Europeans began to favor tea over coffee, which affected the popularity of cafés. They again gained favor in the nineteenth century among writers and artists.

Overview

During the mid-twentieth century, cafés added entertainment in the form of Beat Generation writers and folk musicians. Open mic nights also attracted musicians, poets, and other artists. By this time, cafés had gained popularity in the United States—particularity in Seattle, Washington, and New York's Greenwich Village.

Specialty coffee drinks featuring milk and sweet syrups emerged in the 1970s. These quickly became popular with coffee drinkers and profitable for café owners. Starbucks café was one of the first chains to offer these types of drinks. The first café opened its doors in 1971in Seattle. The shop was designed as a place to stop for a coffee and then leave; there was nowhere to sit and linger. However, Howard Schultz changed this format when he purchased Starbucks in 1987 and rebranded the café as a specialty coffee emporium. Over the next few decades, Starbucks redefined coffee in America and inspired many competitors. The cafés offered places for people to grab high-quality coffee drinks and sit, read, meet, or talk with others—but the cafés of the yesteryear (places where people congregated to talk for hours) never really caught back on, especially with the emergence of new technology.

The advent of the Internet in the late twentieth century led to another type of café: the Internet café. Instead of selling coffee, Internet cafés offered patrons the use of computers connected to the Internet. The establishments usually charged customers by the minute or hour to use the computers. Some cafés even sold refreshments. Internet cafés became very popular with people who did not have computers or Internet service—especially in poorer communities and countries throughout the world. Groups of gamers also gathered at these cafés to play video games against one another. While Internet cafés remained popular throughout many parts of the world, they lost popularity in the United States in the twenty-first century when computers and high-speed Internet service became more accessible.

As Wi-Fi, wireless Internet, became more readily available, many cafés began to offer this free service to their customers. This attracted a new type of customer to cafés. Instead of patrons reading or chatting over a latte, people were using laptop computers and other devices. This became the norm at these establishments. Cafés became like offices for many people who frequented them to do work. Through the twenty-first century, cafés offered gourmet and special types of coffee to entice consumers. They also introduced new brewing methods such as cold brew for iced coffee.

Bibliography

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Passikoff, Robert. "U.S. Consumers Drinking a Latte More Coffee." Forbes, 16 Sept. 2013, www.forbes.com/sites/robertpassikoff/2013/09/16/u-s-consumers-drinking-a-latte-more-coffee/#7c2e32534734. Accessed 20 Oct. 2016.

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