Why Was The Coffee House So Popular In The 17th Century

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During the 16th and 17th century coffee began expanding all across the world becoming one of the most popular drinks. Even more than the coffee itself people loved the coffee houses. Coffee houses were establishments meant for people to relax and have a leisurely time. People went to coffee houses to discuss business and sometimes just to relax, much like a modern café today. Coffee houses became very popular in London and causes quite a bit of stir. Coffee came to London/England in the mid 1600’s. It is documented that the first English coffee house officially opened in 1652 and the people in England seemed to gravitate quickly to this new establishment. They became so popular that by 1732 there were at least 551 coffee house built all around …show more content…

20 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.) Coffee houses became so popular in England that they were even the setting in certain paintings. In a certain painting called “The Coffee House Politicians” the painting depicts some politicians handling business in a coffee house. If you observe the painting the artist depicts coffee houses as place of official business. There are also no women in the painting except for the one behind the counter working there. In another painting of a Turkish girl having coffee on a sofa from the “Collection of Prints of Costumes from the Levant”, which was engraved by I. Hassard, the coffee house is very nice and looks more like a palace. The artists seems to depict the coffee as somewhere of high standards. In an illustration from ‘Traite Nouveau et Curieux du Cafe, du The et du Chocolat’ by Philippe Sylvestre Dufour, La Haye, the artist depicts the particular coffee house as a relaxed environment, and a place to have decent converstations. . (Tignor, Robert L., Jon Durbin, and Elizabeth Pollard. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World from the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present. Concise ed. New York: Norton, 2015.

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