All About Coffee by William H. Ukers (best new books to read .TXT) đź“•
CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF COFFEE PROPAGATION
A brief account of the cultivation of the coffee plant in the Old World, and of its introduction into the New--A romantic coffee adventure Page 5
CHAPTER III
EARLY HISTORY OF COFFEE DRINKING
Coffee in the Near East in the early centuries--Stories of its origin--Discovery by physicians and adoption by the Church--Its spread through Arabia, Persia, and Turkey--Persecutions and Intolerances--Early coffee manners and customs Page 11
CHAPTER IV
INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO WESTERN EUROPE
When the three great temperance beverages, cocoa, tea, and coffee, came to Europe--Coffee first mentioned by Rauwolf in 1582--Early days of coffee in Italy--How Pope Clement VIII baptized it and made it a truly Christian beverage--The first Europe
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Peele's Coffee-house, Nos. 177 and 178, Fleet-street, east corner of Fetter-lane, was one of the coffee-houses of the Johnsonian period; and here was long preserved a portrait of Dr. Johnson, on the keystone of a chimney-piece, stated to have been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Peele's was noted for files of newspapers from these dates: Gazette, 1759; Times, 1780; Morning Chronicle, 1773; Morning Post, 1773; Morning Herald, 1784; Morning Advertiser, 1794; and the evening papers from their commencement. The house is now a tavern.
Coffee Literature and Ideals
The bibliography at the end of this work will serve to indicate the nature and extent of the general literature of coffee. Not that it is complete or nearly so; it would require twice the space to include mention of all the fugitive bits of verse, essays, and miscellaneous writings in newspapers, and periodicals, dealing with the poetry and romance, history, chemistry, and physiological effects of coffee. Only the early works, and the more notable contributions of the last three centuries, are included in the bibliography; but there is sufficient to enable the student to analyze the lines of general progress.
A study of the literature of coffee shows that the French really internationalized the beverage. The English and Italians followed. With the advent of the newspaper press, coffee literature began to suffer from its competition.
The complexities of modern life suggest that coffee drinking in perfection, the esthetics, and a new literature of coffee may once more become the pleasure of a small caste. Are the real pleasures of life, the things truly worth while, only to the swift—the most efficient? Who shall say? Are not some of us, particularly in America, rather prone to glorify the gospel of work to such an extent that we are in danger of losing the ability to understand or to enjoy anything else?
Granted that this is so, coffee, already recognized as the most grateful lubricant known to the human machine, is destined to play another part of increasing importance in our national life as a kind of national shock-absorber as well. But its rĂ´le is something more than this, surely. When life is drab, it takes away its grayness. When life is sad, it brings us solace. When life is dull, it brings us new inspiration. When we are a-weary, it brings us comfort and good cheer.
The lure of coffee lies in its appeal to our finer sensibilities; and signs are not wanting that that pursuit of the long, sweet happiness that every one is seeking will lead some of us (even in big bustling America) into footpaths that end in places where coffee will offer much of its pristine inspiration and charm. It probably will not be a coffee house anything like that of the long ago, but perhaps it will be a kind of modernized coffee club. Why not?
After the etching by J. Beauvarlet from a painting by Adriaen Van Ostade (1610–1675), which is said to be the earliest picture of a coffee house in western Europe Chapter XXXIII COFFEE IN RELATION TO THE FINE ARTS
How coffee and coffee drinking have been celebrated in painting, engraving, sculpture, caricature, lithography, and music—Epics, rhapsodies, and cantatas in praise of coffee—Beautiful specimens of the art of the potter and the silversmith as shown in the coffee service of various periods in the world's history—Some historical relics
Coffee has inspired the imagination of many poets, musicians, and painters. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries those whose genius was dedicated to the fine arts seem to have fallen under its spell and to have produced much of great beauty that has endured. To the painters, engravers, and caricaturists of that period we are particularly indebted for pictures that have added greatly to our knowledge of early coffee customs and manners.
Adriaen Van Ostade (1610–1685), the Dutch genre painter and etcher, pupil of Frans Hals, in his "Dutch Coffee House" (1650), shows the genesis of the coffee house of western Europe about the time it still partook of some of the tavern characteristics. Coffee is being served to a group in the foreground. It is believed to be the oldest existing picture of a coffee house. The illustration is after the etching by J. Beauvarlet in the graphic collection at Munich.
William Hogarth (1697–1764), the famous English painter and engraver of satirical subjects, chose the coffee houses of his time for the scenes of a number of his social caricatures. In his series, "Four Times of the Day," which throws a vivid light on the street life of London of the period of 1738, we are shown Covent Garden at 7:55 A.M. by the clock on St. Paul's Church. A prim maiden lady (said to have been sketched from an elderly relation of the artist, who cut him out of her will) on her way home from early service, accompanied by a shivering foot-boy, is scandalized by the spectacle presented by some roystering blades issuing from Tom King's notorious coffee house to the right. The beaux are forcing their attentions upon the more comely of the market women in the foreground. Tom King was a scholar at Eton before he began his ignoble career. At the date of this picture, it is thought he had been succeeded by his widow, Moll King, also of scandalous repute.
Scene VI of the "Rake's Progress" by Hogarth is laid at the club in White's chocolate (coffee) house, which Dr. Swift described as "the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies." The rake has lost all his recently acquired wealth, pulls off his wig and flings himself upon the floor in a paroxysm of fury and execration. In allusion to the burning of White's in 1733, flames are seen bursting from the wainscot, but the pre-occupied gamblers take no heed, even of the watchman crying "Fire!" To the left is seated a highwayman, with horse pistol and black mask in a skirt pocket of his coat. He is so engrossed in his thoughts that he does not notice the boy at his side offering a glass of liquor on a tray. The scene well depicts the low estate to which White's had fallen. It recalls a bit of dialogue from Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem (act III, scene 2), where Aimwell says to Gibbet, who is a highwayman: "Pray, sir, ha'nt I seen your face at Will's Coffee House?" "Yes sir, and at White's, too," answers the highwayman.
From a painting in the series, "The Rake's Progress," by William Hogarth
After the fire, the club and chocolate house were removed to Gaunt's coffee house. The removal was thus announced in the Daily Post of May 3:
This is to acquaint all noblemen and gentlemen that Mr. Arthur having had the misfortune to be burnt out of White's Chocolate House is removed to Gaunt's Coffee House, next the St. James Coffee House in St. James Street, where he humbly begs they will favour him with their company as usual.
Alessandro Longhi (1733–1813) the Italian painter and engraver, called the Venetian Hogarth, in one of his pictures presenting life and manners in Venice during the years of her decadence, shows Goldoni, the dramatist, as a visitor in a café of the period, with a female mendicant soliciting alms.
In the Louvre at Paris hangs the "Petit Déjeuner" by François Boucher (1703–1770), famous court painter of Louis XV. It shows a French breakfast-room of the period of 1744, and is interesting because it illustrates the introduction of coffee into the home; it shows also the coffee service of the time.
In Van Loo's portrait of Madame de Pompadour, second mistress and political adviser of Louis XV of France, the coffee service of a later period of the eighteenth century appears. The Nubian servant is shown offering the marquise a demi-tasse which has just been poured from the covered oriental pot which succeeded the original Arabian-Turkish boiler, and was much in vogue at the time.
Coffee and Madame du Barry (or would it be more polite to say Madame du Barry and coffee?) inspired the celebrated painting of Madame de Pompadour's successor in the affections of Louis "the well beloved." This is entitled "Madame du Barry at Versailles", and in the Versailles catalog it is described as painted by Decreuse after Drouais. Decreuse was a pupil of Gros, and painted many of the historical portraits at Versailles.
From a printing in the series, "Four Times of the Day," by William Hogarth
Malcolm C. Salaman, in his French Color Prints of the XVIII Century, referring to Dagoty's print of this picture, done in 1771, says, "the original has been attributed to François Hubert Drouais, but there can be little doubt that the original portraiture was from the hand of the engraver (Dagoty), as the style is far inferior to Drouais." He thus describes it:
Here we see the last of Louis XV's mistresses, sitting in her bedroom in that alluring retreat of hers at Louveciennes, near the woods of Marly, as she takes her cup of coffee from her pet attendant, the little negro boy, Zamore, as the Prince de Conti had named him, all brave in red and gold. Doubtless she is expecting the morning visit of the King, no longer the handsome young gallant, but old and leaden-eyed, and puffy-cheeked; and perhaps it will be on this very morning that she will wheedle Louis, in a moment of extravagant badinage, into appointing the negro boy to be Governor of the Chateau and Pavilion of Louveciennes at a handsome salary, just as, on another day, she playfully teased the jaded old sensualist into decorating with the cordon bleu her cuisinière when it was triumphantly revealed to him that the dinner he had been praising with enthusiastic gusto was, after all, the work of a woman cook, the very possibility of which he had contemptuously doubted. But as we look at these two, the royal mistress and her little black favorite, we forget the "well beloved" and his voluptuous pleasures and indulgences, for in the shadows we see another picture, some twenty years on, when the proud unconscionable beauty, no longer reine de la main gauche, stands before the dreaded Tribunal of the Terror, while Zamore, the treacherous, ungrateful negro, dismissed from his service at Louveciennes and now devoted to the committee of public safety, and one of her implacable accusers, sends her shrieking to the guillotine.
Showing the home coffee service of the period of 1744
The introduction of the coffee house into Europe was memorialized by Franz Schams, the genre painter, pupil of the Vienna Academy, in a beautiful picture entitled "The First Coffee House in Vienna, 1684," owned by the Austrian Art Society. A lithographic reproduction was executed by the artist and printed by Joseph Stoufs in Vienna. There are several specimens in the United States; and the illustration printed on page 48 has been made from one of these in the possession of the author.
The picture shows the interior of the Blue Bottle, where Kolschitzky opened the first coffee house in Vienna. The hero-proprietor stands in the foreground pouring a cup of the beverage from an oriental coffee pot, and another is suspended from the
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