U.S. coffeehouse culture is grounded in history
Published on February 1, 2008
The next time you step inside a coffeehouse — be it an independent or a chain — relax and inhale deeply. There's a lot of history behind that arresting aroma and ambiance.
According to various accounts, a goat herder discovered coffee while tending to his flock tending to his flock in Ethiopia centuries ago and by 1475 the first Turkish coffeehouse had opened its doors in Constantinople (now Istanbul).
Coffee arrived in Colonial America somewhere between the 17th and 18th centuries. Our loyalty to the beverage started in earnest with the 1773 Boston Tea Party, when American colonists destroyed crates of tea bricks in Boston Harbor to protest the British Crown's excessive tea tax. Afterward, many colonists pledged to abstain from tea and the First Continental Congress proclaimed coffee to be the nation's official beverage.
Coffeehouses, already popular in Europe, quickly became important meeting places for American politicians and businessmen. George Washington is said to have planned his attack on Cornwallis' troops in 1776 while sipping coffee with his staff officers in New York City's Fraunces' Coffee House. The Tontine Coffee House, built in the 1790s, became an early location for the New York Stock Exchange because traders conducted so much business there.
The modern age of American coffeehouses was ushered in with the invention of the commercial piston espresso machine in 1946. The Gaggia coffee bar in Italy was reportedly the first place to use these machines and to offer espresso along with regular coffee. But it wasn't until 1983 when Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, then the director of retail operations and marketing, traveled to Italy, where he was impressed with the popularity of espresso bars in Milan. Upon his return, he succeeded in building on — and mainstreaming — the coffeehouse culture that had already begun to flourish with the Beat generation in cities like Seattle, New York and San Francisco.
Even Schultz, however, has admitted to having fears about the company's fast-paced global expansion. In an e-mail memo addressed to top executives andthatand leaked to media insider Jim Romenesko last year, Schultz said that one of the results of the growth has been "a watering down of the Starbucks experience" and "stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store."
"While the current state of affairs for the most part is self induced," Schultz continued, "that has lead to competitors of all kinds, small and large coffee companies, fast food operators and mom and pops, to position themselves in a way that creates awareness, trial and loyalty of people who previously have been Starbucks customers. This must be eradicated."
Where that leaves Starbucks is anyone's guess, but the company has arguably has been good forthe industry in general. "Coffee is a hot commodity in more ways than one," says Robert F. Nelson, president of the National Coffee Association. "It's filling new roles in American life as it expands in variety, popularity and presence as an icon of an exploding U.S. cafe culture.