Tag: Coffee

On a London Café

You can’t spit in Edinburgh these days for a coffee shop. London’s almost the same. Here’s a story about such a place that opened in London a while back. And it’s a typical story of a mix of cultures coming together in the British capital city as is often the case. The man who started this particular café was a Greek immigrant named Pasqua Rosee. He came to England to work for a man he’d met in Turkey a few years before. Now, to be fair, Pasqua was planning to work clandestinely. But he still had the drive to open a coffee place in London and make it like the coffee he had growing up–a confluence of Turkish and Greek tastes that he felt would appeal to the sophisticated palates of Londoners.

You see, Pasqua had worked as sort of a butler or servant for a London resident named Dan Edwards when Dan lived and worked overseas. One of the jobs Pasqua had was making coffee every day for Dan. And Dan raved about it. He praised the Greek man, telling him that there wasn’t anything like Pasqua’s coffee in London. So, believing his employer, Pasqua took the chance and bought a ticket to England. He had saved some money, but he knew that his illegal status would preclude him from actually owning the business and, besides, he simply didn’t have the contacts. But Dan had his back. Dan provided the “face” for the legal stuff and let Pasqua’s coffee-roasting and brewing skills do the actual work.

The called the coffee shop, simply, Rosee, after Pasqua’s family.

Dan also helped Pasqua get some baristas to help in the business. One man, Kitt Bowman, was a family friend of Dan’s who decided to invest in the business as well as work there. And the location–which we can all agree can make or break a business–was superb. It was right in the financial district, not too far from the Royal Exchange, and the clientele and market was upscale people who had disposable income. The business was a success soon after opening. The place was packed. People raved over the taste of Pasqua’s coffee. People kept asking him to sell his secret of how he achieved the great tastes of his roast, but he wouldn’t budge. Kitt and Dan were supremely happy. Word of mouth soon made it the most popular coffee place in London.

But, then, the coffee shop’s luck ran out and disaster struck. A fire in a nearby location swept through the adjoining buildings and destroyed the establishment. However, Pasqua wasn’t in the country at the time. It seems that his lack of legality in England had somehow caught up with him, and he was forced to leave the country. Kitt carried on for a time until he grew sick, and then, the fire finally killed Rosee. But the way Pasqua made coffee didn’t die with Rosee. Within a few years, over 500 coffee places had sprung up in London and the surrounding villages using his roasting and brewing methods.

Oh, and that fire that destroyed Rosee? It was the Great Fire of London.

You see, Pasqua Rosee opened London’s very first coffee shop–back in 1652.

On a Popular Drug Addiction

As far as historians can tell, the scourge began in Mecca. People gathered in small groups to consume the drug and socialize. Such became its pull that the governor of the city ordered it banned in the early 1500s. Additionally, he decreed that any discovery of its use punishable with severe penalties. It was a danger to the public, he moralized, and declared it even more of a potential disturbance to the commonweal than alcohol was. In addition, he was quick to point out that, unlike alcohol, this particular drug caused radical thinking rather than lethargy. And that was the primary danger. Unfortunately for the governor, his immediate superior was under the spell of the drug since he was member of the Sumi Muslims. That sect, some of the first abusers of it, gave the drug the name Qahwa. Anyway, the governor’s boss forced him to overturn the ban and make the drug legal again. Oh, and he arrested the governor. But that wasn’t the only time attempts at banning the drug in the Muslim world. Clerics decried the fact that abusers usually gathered to use it. They hated the idea that any place besides their mosques would be a place politics, religion, or even gossip would shared. However, these bans never really lasted.

Members of the Catholic church in the late 1500s tried to ban it as well, citing “proof” that it was a drug from the devil. None other than the head of the church, Pope Clement, stopped this clerical attempt at an Italian version of Just Say No. He, too, had tasted this devil drug and had fallen victim to its charms. His Holiness is reported to have said that the wondrous drug was too good to be left to infidels; God would not have allowed something so incredible to be on earth without allowing His children to enjoy it. Just to waylay any possible fears about the demonic nature of the drug, Clement actually baptized it before using it, thus eliminating any possible demonic influence.

Other attempts to keep the drug off the streets have happened in several countries over the ensuing centuries. Sweden tried to thwart its use by keeping it legal but raising the price so high as to try to keep it out of the hands of the lower classes. That didn’t work. Germany also tried to limit the drug’s use by promoting its home brewed beers. It says a lot that a government would prefer its population drink alcohol rather than take this drug. Britain attempted bans, but public outcry against such attempts threatened to overturn several parliamentary elections. Even the United States has seen periods where the government made the use of the drug limited to a public who craved it desperately.

The popularity of the drug has allowed it to be legal for most of the history of its public use. It helped the popularity that the drug has been used in the home, but it has also been often consumed in public gathering places and still is to this day. In fact, you’ve probably been to one of these drug dens.

It’s caffeine.