A Short History of Coffee by Gordon Kerr

Author:Gordon Kerr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oldcastle Books
Published: 2021-01-05T12:39:27+00:00

New York

The importance of the coffee house to New Yorkers as a public meeting place, can be seen in a letter, written by ‘A Friend to the City’ in The New York Journal of 9 October 1775:

…coffee houses have been universally deemed the most convenient places of resort, because at a small expense of time or money, persons wanted may be found and spoke with, appointments made, current news heard, and whatever it most concerns us to know. In all cities, therefore, and large towns that I have seen in the British dominions, sufficient encouragement has been given to support one or more coffee houses in a genteel manner. How comes it then that New York, the most central, and one of the largest and most prosperous cities in British America, cannot support one coffee house? It is a scandal to the city and its inhabitants to be destitute of such a convenience for want of due encouragement. A coffee house, indeed, there is, a very good and comfortable one, extremely well-tended and accommodated, but it is frequented but by an inconsiderable number of people; And I have observed with surprise, that but a small part of those who do frequent it, contribute anything at all to the expense of it, but come in and go out without calling for or paying anything to the house. In all the coffee houses of London, it is customary for every one that comes in to call for at least a dish of coffee, or leave the value of one, which is but reasonable, because when the keepers of these houses have been at the expense of setting them up and providing all necessaries for the accommodation of company, every one that comes to receive the benefit of these conveniences ought to contribute something towards the expense of them.

Coffee began to replace ‘must’ or beer at breakfast in New York and it was not long before coffee houses, somewhat on the London model, began to open. As elsewhere, they quickly became centres of business and politics as well as a vital part of the social life of New Yorkers. In the beginning, however, they were never the literary hothouses that many European coffee houses were, since professional writers were in short supply in the city at the time. Unusually, however, they took on even greater importance in New York as their long rooms were sometimes used as courthouses as well as for the general assembly meetings of the colonists or even for council meetings. The British-style coffee shop was also an attempt by Governor Benjamin Fletcher (1640-1703) to anglicise the city after four decades of Dutch rule and to counter the influence of the rebellious Calvinist settlers who were descended from Dutch settlers.

It is often said that the first coffee house in North America was opened in New York. The earliest record in support of this shows that on 1 November 1696, John Hutchins bought a piece of land on Broadway on which he built a coffee house at the sign of the King’s Arms.

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