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Notes on Coffee Houses

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CHANGING COFFEE SHOP CULTURE

Coffee, a very common form of caffeine in our society, has transformed over time. With the influences and advancements in our society, the culture of coffee shops and coffee in its entirety, has shifted from being a time or place where one can enjoy a cup of coffee, socialize, and engage in interesting conversations with other coffee shop customers.

Now, worldwide coffee shop chains like Starbucks serve customer’s coffee through to go windows and crowded counters, eliminating the aspects that made the coffee shop culture so unique in the first place. There must be a happy-medium, and it starts with students who have the ability to help change coffee shops as a place for people to relax, get work done, or chat with friends; and as a bonus, get a caffeine boost.

This would help bring back the coffee culture that is based on fostering new relationships in a comfortable, productive, and welcoming environment as opposed to a lonely time of the day where people quickly choke down a cup of mediocre, lukewarm coffee in order to “fuel up.”

Many people don’t take the time to enjoy a carefully brewed cup of coffee or socialize during coffee breaks, which is what coffee shops have been known for fostering for many years. Many people wouldn’t dare to slow the pace of their day and sacrifice precious working hours even for a well-needed break, or pause in their day.

In addition, the changing views of the entire purpose of coffee shops and coffee as a whole, is causing students in particular to create a dependency on caffeine that could be more easily avoided if the culture regarding coffee and coffee shops shifted back to how it was in our recent history, as a place of social gatherings and catching up on the latest news or gossip.

As a student myself, I appreciate the ease and efficient nature of coffee shops like Starbucks and other coffee entities. However, students have become so reliant on coffee as a source of caffeine that not only is the art and appreciation for good quality coffee is diminished, but also their time to drink coffee is no longer a memorable experience.

Instead, students order coffee and try to gulp it down as fast as they can for the relief of caffeine running through their veins in order to get them through the next few hours; or at least until their next cup of coffee. It would be beneficial for students to utilize their coffee breaks as a time where they can socialize with other students and take a break from academics all while still “fueling up.”

In order to bring back bits and pieces of coffee shop culture that have occurred so recent in our history, I encourage the efforts to start with college students. Habits and behaviors become more prominent as students enter college and the workload increases in addition to the pressures to succeed.

I challenge students to embrace the coffee shop culture of our past; engage in interesting conversations with others detached from electronics, take a break from studying, and enjoy a cup of coffee that will help you get through the day instead of racing to choke it down.

Hopefully, encouraging this kind of culture surrounding coffee, will benefit students and help change their behaviors to influence a healthy mind and body and a meaningful coffee shop culture.

[Joanne Kirkby]

"Coffee has always been a significant part of my life. For me, it's a chance to start my day and gather my thoughts. It's fuel for my creative process."

-Connor Franta

"As you get a little older and start drinking a bit more coffee, you start talking about big-boy things a little more."

-Synyster Gates

"I know many people have said it before, but there is nothing a cup of coffee and a new pair of shoes can't fix!"

-Marissa Jaret Winokur

"Our coffee houses are social networks."

-Heather Brooke

"The smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the world's greatest inventions."

-Hugh Jackman

"Three hundred years ago, during the Age of Enlightenment, the coffee house became the center of innovation."

-Peter Diamonde

“Let me wake up next to you, have coffee in the morning and wander through the city with your hand in mine, and I'll be happy for the rest of my fucked up little life.”

-Charlotte Eriksson

COFFEE HOUSE SOUNDTRACK

COFFEE SHOP REFUGE

The cafe is my refuge, this place I can make believe that I am in a caring society. At the tables are my imaginary friends in a transient community. We are born to need social bonds. We are born to need a sense of others, even if we are alone. It is terrible for the higher brain to know that we are solitary, that our life path has asked us to learn how to be the warrior instead of the cosseted, the protector and not the protected. Yet there is a need to fool the senses that this society is a safe place and we belong to a tribe. So in this cafe, among the noises of people, their scent, their occasional glances and the chatter of the baristas, I give my primitive brain a little of what it craves, just enough to see me though.

[Angela Abraham]

THOUGHTS FROM WITHIN A MUG

Coffee, so delicate, yet so simple.
It can give you the highest of buzzes,
to the deepest of thoughts.
Coffee is a blank canvas.

The drinker is the artist.
Splashing vibrant coats of sugar and milk, creamer flowing from brushes. spoons clanking and stirring a beautiful picture.
Creating one of a kind work.
To each cup of coffee his own.

[Alicia D Clarke]

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ODE TO COFFEE

Odes to Coffee, a Haiku, a Limerick, and a Verse

Coffee, Coffee Nod
Coffee, Coffee, Coffee Yawn
One cup down, talk now

Coffee, coffee, coffee
Coffee, Coffee, coffee
Everyone shut up
Please refill my cup
Coffee, Coffee, Coffee

Coffee, Coffee yay
Coffee, Coffee hey

Let me take a drink to jumpstart my day
Off to work we go to earn some needed pay
Be a real man and drink it black
Or make it all fancy and catch some flack

[The Fire Burns | Hello Poetry | 2017]

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COFFEE TRIVIA

--Coffee is native to tropical Africa, Madagascar, and the Comoros, Mauritius and Réunion in the Indian Ocean

--The plant was exported from Africa to countries around the world and coffee plants are now cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in the equatorial regions of the Americas, Southeast Asia, India, and Africa.

--The two most commonly grown are the highly regarded arabica, and the less sophisticated but stronger and more hardy robusta.

--The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century in the Sufi shrines of Yemen.

--Coffee seeds were first exported from Eastern Africa to Yemen, as the coffee plant is thought to have been indigenous to the former.

--From the Middle East, coffee spread to Italy. The thriving trade between Venice and North Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East brought many goods, including coffee, to the Venetian port. From Venice, it was introduced to the rest of Europe.

--The Dutch East India Company was the first to import coffee on a large scale.

--Starbucks sustainability chief Jim Hanna has warned that climate change may significantly impact coffee yields within a few decades.

--Caffeine was once thought to be a significant diuretic, but that’s actually not true. Unless it’s consumed in large quantities (more than 500 to 600 mg a day, or two coffees) there aren’t such negative effects. In fact, studies have shown that urine output isn’t significantly changed when a person drinks a caffeinated beverage, rather than something non-caffeinated like water.

--Coffee contains lots of antioxidants that help the body fight chemicals called “free radicals.” As a result, drinkers are at a lower risk of diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease, Type II Diabetes, and Heart Disease.

--Coffee contains important nutrients you need to survive. A single cup of coffee contains 11% of the daily recommended amount of Riboflavin (vitamin B2), 6% of Pantothenic Acid (vitamin B5), 3% of Manganese and Potassium, and 2% of Niacin and Magnesium.

--The buzz you feel after drinking coffee is actually from ingesting tiny 0.0016-inch crystals of caffeine.

--The most expensive coffee in the world is made from elephant dung, and it’s called Black Ivory coffee. It costs $50 per cup.

--People who drink four cups of coffee a day are 80% less likely to develop cirrhosis, a condition that develops from several diseases affecting the liver.

--During Turkish wedding ceremonies, grooms were made to vow to always provide their brides with coffee. Failure to do so could result in divorce.

--French novelist and playwright Honore de Balzac supposedly consumed 50 cups of coffee a day to fuel his inspiration while writing. It’s scary to think that the lethal dose is about 100 cups of coffee.

--During WWII American soldiers would ordered their espresso watered down because it was too strong for them.

--Coffee was declared illegal not once, not twice, but a whopping three times by three different cultures! The first was in Mecca in 1511, followed by Charles the II in Europe in an attempt to quell the on-going rebellion and the third was by Fredrick the Great in Germany in 1677 who was worried about the economic implications of money leaving the country to buy this beverage.

--In 1906, a Belgian man living in Guatemala by the name George Washington invented instant coffee. Not the first American president, but the first inventor of instant coffee.

--Energy drinks still don’t have as much caffeine as a Starbucks coffee.

--Coffee is the world’s second most valuable traded commodity, only behind petroleum.

--Coffee is most effective if consumed between 9:30 and 11:30 am.

--Coffee beans aren’t beans. They are actually fruit pits.

--The first reference to coffee in the English language is in the form chaona, dated to 1598 and understood to be a misprint of chaoua equivalent, in the orthography of the time, to chaova.

--This term and “coffee” both derive from the Ottoman Turkish kahve, by way of the Italian caffè.

[Evita Gorgorni]

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"Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"

-Albert Camus

"Coffee smells like freshly ground heaven."

-Jessi Lane Adams

"I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless."

-Napoleon Bonaparte

"There’s nothing sweeter than a cup of bitter coffee."

-Rian Aditia

"I never laugh until I've had my coffee."

-Clark Gable

LIPSTICK PRINTS ON COFFEE CUPS

I’m mesmerized by lipstick prints on coffee cups. By the lines of lips against white pottery. By the color chosen by the woman who sat and sipped and lived life. By the mark she leaves behind. Some people read tea leaves and others can tell your future through the lines on your palm. I think I’d like to read lipstick marks on coffee mugs.

To learn how to differentiate yearning from satiation. To know the curve of a deep-rooted joy or the line of bottomless grief. To be able to say, this deep blue red you chose and how firmly you planted your lips, this speaks of love on the horizon.

But, darling, you must be sure to stand in your own truth. That barely-there nude that circles the entire rim? You are exploding into lightness and possibilities beyond what you currently know. The way the gloss only shows when the light hits it and the coffee has sloshed all over the saucer? people need to take the time to see you whole but my god, you’re glorious and messy and wonderful and free. The deep purple bruise almost etched in a single spot and most of the cup left unconsumed?

Oh love. Let me hold the depth of your ache. It is true. He’s not coming back. I know you already know this, but do you also know this is not the end? Love. This is not the end.

[Jeanette LeBlanc]

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"I was taken by the power that savoring a simple cup of coffee can have to connect people and create community."

-Howard Schultz

"I never wrote music or arranged songs or lyrics when I was under the influence of anything but coffee. That's not gone away."

-Chris Cornell

"Even a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all."

-David Lynch

"I have a group of cafes and coffee shops that I go to regularly. They usually have an area where I can plug in my computer and have a corner seat where I can do a couple hours of writing or whatever, even the noise of the surrounding people walking by. Those things are the things that stimulate me into writing."

-Bong Joon-ho

"Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after."

-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Cafe and Coffee House Culture

COFFEE SHOP EPIDEMIC

There is a coffee shop epidemic spreading across the United States, affecting college students everywhere. Where a library once held the title of premium study location, a coffee shop now stands in its place. No one is safe. The coffee shop culture is something that every millennial has experienced from one time or another. Whether they're the nerdy English Lit major who lives off vanilla lattes to get through Shakespeare class, or the Communications major who cannot get enough of the atmosphere that the local coffee shop provides, everyone has a reason to be at a coffee shop. There are many reasons to find a coffee shop hang out, whether it be for a study group, or for a favorite bagel. The college generation is infatuated with the chill, hipster vibe that coffee shops bring, so much so, that most college campuses create their own coffee shop for students to enjoy.

[Odyssey]

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"I force people to go out and have coffee with me, just because I don't trust that a friendship can be maintained without any other senses besides a computer or cellphone screen."

-John Cusack

"If you're a new artist, practice your art and share it. Set up shop somewhere, whether it's a street corner or a coffee shop. I got my start in a coffee shop."

-Jason Mraz

"It can take me forever to choose the right coffee cup in the morning. And it does make a difference!"

-Joel Grey

"If it wasn't for the coffee, I'd have no identifiable personality whatsoever."

-David Letterman

"I get up early, go to the coffee shop to play cards for a while."

-Scarlett Johansson

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GULPING HISTORY

Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, Pennsylvania, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.

[Sarah Vowell]

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"He was my cream, and I was his coffee. And when you poured us together, it was something."

-Josephine Baker

“I like coffee exceedingly.”

-HP Lovecraft

"Without my morning coffee, I’m just like a dried-up piece of goat."

-JS Bach

"It’s amazing how the world begins to change through the eyes of a cup of coffee."

-Donna A. Favors

"Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical."

-Jonathan Swift

“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?”

-Cassandra Clare

EVOLUTION OF COFFEE CULTURE

69% of Americans drink 2 or more cups of coffee every day (everything from Folgers to craft coffee roasters carefully curated in a home coffee maker or at the local coffee shop) how did the humble cup of joe come to be such a cultural phenomenon?

History of the Bean

Origin...
Multiple cultures claim to be the first coffee drinkers. In the 15th century, Earliest confirmed record of coffee drinking is from Yemen. The English word “coffee” originated from the Arabic word “quahweh.”

Into Europe...
In the 17th century, Trade with the Middle East brought coffee to Europe. Venetians, Parisians, and the Dutch were among the first to adopt the drink.

The Netherlands...

Home to the first known coffee houses. Recorded between 1610-1675 in the work of Dutch artist Adriaen Van Ostade.

In 1699, the East India Trading Company started growing the coffee plant in Indonesia, in an area known as Java.

The New World...
Many Americans (including President John Adams) started drinking coffee instead of tea as a patriotic act of defiance after the Boston Tea Party.

By the 1800s...
Pioneers such as James Folger began selling the drink to miners in the California gold rush and paved the way for other producers like Maxwell House to join the burgeoning American coffee market.

Recent History...
In 1971, Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. CEO Howard Schultz was determined to bring Italian café culture to the US. Popularized European-style drinks such as espresso and cappuccino. By 2018, Starbucks had 29,324 stores worldwide with about 50% of locations in the US. Seattle and the Northwest are now a hub for some of the best coffee in America.

How Cafés Became Our

Home Away From Home

Coffee houses have been around since people began drinking coffee, but their cultural impact seems bigger than ever before. According to sociologist Ray Oldenburg, coffee houses are a kind of “third place,” an important social setting outside of home or work.

The Third Place...
A neutral location which serves as a meeting ground that is accessible to everyone regardless of status. They are focused on community, conversation, and creative interaction. Other significant “third places” are bars, parks, barber shops.

Previously in Pop Culture...
Historically, bars have served as the “third place” on television shows. Coffee shops were still aligned with counterculture and not considered mainstream. Hit TV show “Cheers” took place almost entirely within a bar. That trend began to change in the 1990s with huge shows such as “Seinfeld” and “Friends.”

The “Friends” Effect...
Central Perk was the gang’s coffee shop and hangout spot. In 2014 Warner Brothers hosted a month-long pop-up recreating the iconic café
WB trademarked the rights to the fictional shop’s name, logo, and signage. Clearly it is still culturally relevant nearly 15 years after going off the air.

[Rave Reviews]