Let me bore you a bit further, pdq.

I believe the institution of a Coffee Party in this day of rampant irrationality and generally uncivilized behavior, especially in the realm of politics (which affects us all) is especially timely.

There are certain aspects, both symbolic and very real, about coffee and the effect it had upon shaping our history that makes the inception of a Coffee Party particularly relevant these days. The following, which highlights this, is an excerpt from the book I am writing on the folk music scene in the Puget Sound area leading up to and during the "folk music revival:"

As early as Homer, there were stories of a black and bitter brew that had the power to endow increased alertness on those who drank it, but it was not until much later that the details of the discovery of coffee comes into sharper focus.

One of the many legends that surround the discovery of this universal solvent of intellectuality and sociability holds that sometime in the 9th century, in the part of north Africa now called Ethiopia, a young goat-herd named Kaldi noticed that his goats became particularly alert, frisky, and playful after eating the red berries that grew on certain leafy bushes. Kaldi tried a handful of the berries, and soon found himself experiencing a refreshing lift of spirits and a pleasant sense of heightened awareness. He eagerly recommended the berries to his fellow tribesmen, who subsequently agreed that Kaldi's discovery had indeed been a worthy one.

News of these wonderful berries spread quickly. Local monks heard of them, tried them, and noticed that the berries had the salutary effect of producing more alertness and less dozing off during prayers. They dried the berries so they could be transported to other monasteries. There, the berries were reconstituted in water. The monks ate the berries and then drank the liquid.

Coffee berries soon made their way from Ethiopia to the Arabian Peninsula where they were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen. Coffee then traveled north to Turkey. The Turks were the first to roast the beans. Then they crushed them and boiled them in water. The result was pretty stout stuff, hardly what we today would call gourmet coffee, but it was well on its way. They sometimes added spices to the brew, such as anise, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom.

Venetian traders carried coffee to the European continent sometime in the 16th century. Once in Europe, enthusiastic imbibers regarded this new beverage as the Elixir of Life and the Invigorator of Thought.

But, as frequently happens when humankind discovers something pleasurable, there emerged those people whose lips are stiff and whose faces are grim. These unhappy souls declared coffee to be "the beverage of infidels" and "the Drink of the Devil." Some members of the Catholic Church called for Pope Clement VIII to ban it. Consider their dismay when instead, the Pontiff, wide awake and alert because he'd already had his morning coffee, blessed it and declared it a truly Christian beverage.

The first coffeehouse in Britain, called "The Angel," opened in 1652, not in London, but in Oxford. This is, perhaps, not surprising. After all, Oxford had been a college town since the 12th century. Soon thereafter, coffeehouses began flourishing in London. They swiftly became gathering spots for artists, poets, and philosophers, along with their disciples and groupies. Since coffee at these establishments cost a penny a cup, coffeehouses became known as "penny universities." James Boswell and Samuel Johnson were two well-known coffeehouse habitués.

King Charles II considered coffeehouses to be hotbeds of discontent and a breeding ground for revolt, so in 1675 he banned them. This act nearly caused a revolt. The turmoil was so great that eleven days later he rescinded the ban.

In 1732, Johann Sebastian Bach composed his "Coffee Cantata." The work is an ode to coffee. At the same time, it takes a poke at a movement extant in Germany at the time that sought to forbid women to drink coffee because some people thought it made women sterile.

In the late sixteen-hundreds coffeehouses made their way to the New World: to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, where they prospered just as they had in England. They were also patronized by musicians, artists, poets and other suspicious and undesirable characters. Such as Tom Paine and Ben Franklin. In fact, when the United States were still "The Colonies," the Continental Congress, in protest against the excessive tax the British levied on tea, declared coffee to be the national drink.

So when coffeehouses sprang up like mushrooms in the dank undergrowth of the 1950s, they were nothing really new; they were just another phase of a centuries-old tradition. This renaissance spread through the previous sites: New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; then it vaulted across the continent to California, particularly to San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

© Copyright 2010, Donald Richard Firth

And then I go on to describe the more recent relationship between coffeehouses and folk music.   But there is a further aspect of coffee and how it had a beneficial effect on the civilizing of humankind:

In a fascinating book entitled Around the World in Six Glasses, author Tom Standage, explains how early farmers saved surplus grain by fermenting it into beer, the Greeks took grapes and made wine, and Arabs learned how to distill spirits. Water was often unsafe to drink because of the prevalence of water-born diseases, and not knowing that the cause was bacteria, which could be killed by boiling the water, most people tended to avoid water and drank beer or wine, in which the alcohol killed the germs.

Which is to say, most people wandered about half-splashed most of the time!

When coffee spread from Arabia to Europe and coffeehouses became popular gathering places, for the first time in history since the early discovery of fermentation, people were drinking something which was not only safe to drink (boiling having killed the bacteria), but didn't send them into a foggy stupor! Suddenly, lots of people were alert and could think clearly! Standage credits coffee with being the Universal Solvent that brought about what we now call the Age of Enlightenment. He refers to coffeehouses as being "the Internet of the Age of Reason, facilitating scientific and rational thought."

So it seems that Charles II was right to be apprehensive about coffeehouses. The "Rights of Man" movement started over cups of coffee.

© Copyright 2010, Donald Richard Firth

Respectfully presented for your enlightenment, edification, and general amusement.

Coffee, depending on how you brew it, can give you a considerably stronger belt of caffeine than tea at its strongest. So—here's to good, strong coffee, and thus to alertness and clear thinking, something which is greatly needed in this day and age!

To the Coffee Party!!

Don Firth (make mine strong, black, and no sugar.)

P. S. Of course, "Tea Party" refers to those who rebelled against the English tea tax by throwing a shipment of tea overboard into Boston Harbor. But one wonders what it is that those who currently call themselves the "Tea Party" want to throw overboard besides civilized decorum. The Constitution? After all, the new health care law has been duly passed, not by royal edict or governmental fiat, but by Constitutional means. Rather than rioting, hurling insults, displaying firearms, and striving to physically intimidate elected leaders, they should register their objections at the ballot box.

But then . . . I tend to be an idealist.