Starbucks? Not bad, actually. I've drunk a lot of the stuff. Dark roast, brewed strong. If you like your coffee strong and you don't mind it to taking the enamel off your teeth, it's good stuff. Maybe that's why lots of people go for lattés. Cut it a bit. I prefer my coffee straight.

I learned about good coffee as a student at the University of Washington. No, not that slop at the Student Union Building cafeteria. From a Turkish exchange student I knew. He brewed it strong and flavorful. He said that most Americans don't know what good coffee is and opt for dishwater instead. If you want a cup of coffee, drink drink a cup of coffee.

I live in Seattle. Not to say that there are quite a few Starbucks' in this city, but I went into a Starbucks a few weeks ago and before I placed my order, I decided to go the men's room. Damned if there wasn't a Starbucks in there, too!

I posted this on some thread here maybe three years ago, but for your amusement and amazement, I thought I'd post it again, here. For the memoir/autobio I'm writing (folk music scene in Seattle in the 1950s and 60s, and up until now if I don't run out of steam), I did a bit of research on coffeehouses (big venue for singers of folk songs during that time) and came up with what I thought was some interesting stuff. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and prop up your feet.

    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, and Los Angeles.
    Coffeehouses tended to pop up near college campuses. Many of them became hangouts for students, mostly fledgling artists, writers, poets, and musicians. And hordes of chess players. Occasionally someone with a guitar might be quietly strumming away in a corner. Some places discouraged this sort of thing, but many did not. Many coffeehouses had a small stage, and on certain afternoons or evenings, a jazz combo might be trying out a few things. Or a string quartet, composed of student musicians with dreams of Carnegie Hall would hone their performing skills before a live audience by giving an informal recital. Or there might be a poetry reading. Or poetry and jazz. Some places had a more-or-less resident folksinger. Folksingers were not all that common then, but their numbers were rapidly increasing.
    Most coffeehouses didn't serve just coffee. They generally featured a variety of coffees: a demitasse of espresso, strong enough to take the enamel off your teeth and served with a twist of lemon to bring out the flavor(!); a rich and robust Swedish coffee; a dark, French roast; Turkish, thick, rich, and sweet; café au lait; cappuccino, and many others. In addition to these potent potions, the menu included a long list of teas, from English breakfast tea to aromatic brews with strange and exotic names, like "Oolong" and "Darjeeling." There were chocolate libations, from a regular (but very rich) hot chocolate, to café mocha, to mixtures that contained such components as orange rind, cinnamon, and other spices.
    And they often served light meals, such as sandwiches of various kinds (a bit more elaborate than peanut butter and jelly or ham and cheese), cheese boards (a variety of cheeses and slices of exotic breads along with fruit, such as orange sections or apple slices), and a variety of exotic pastries, sufficiently elegant to delight the most dissolute of sybarites.

© Copyright 2008, Donald Richard Firth

Fun times! I spent a lot of time singing in coffeehouses back then. No, not the 1600 and 1700s!! In the 1950s and 60s. I the late 1950s and on into the 1960s, some coffeehouses were almost like non-alcoholic night clubs, and actually paid fairly decent money! AND, there is a lot of folk music going on in Seattle's coffeehouses these days.

"Come all ye bold fellers. . . ."

Don Firth