The emergence of coffee as America’s favorite beverage is
purported to have been instigated by the unfair taxes imposed by the English
government on American colonists in the late 18th Century. The
Boston Tea Party is one of many iconic events that set the stage for revolution
and brought an end to the dominance of Indian black tea as ritual morning,
midday and evening beverage of recent arrivals to the North American continent.
So how did this replacement activity actually happen? How
did it occur that now, over
1400 million cups of coffee are drunk around the world each day?
In
1793, coffee was still mainly consumed for medicinal purposes and was too
expensive for everyday use.
“New
York's first coffee roaster opened on Pearl Street, selling wholesale beans to
taverns and hotels, which led to an abundance of coffee businesses along the
East River ports. Since coffee importers lacked appropriate communication tools
and were at the mercy of the bean-toting ships' arrivals, most of this early
consumer-grade green coffee (which would eventually be roasted) was months old,
gaining unattractive qualities from the musty and damp wooden ships….
“[T]he
Coffee Exchange of New York began regulating traffic in 1882, creating coffee
standards and influencing the quality available to consumers. Through the
progression of wooden to steam-powered ships, to paper packaging, advancements
in roasting technology and selling coffee based on its taste instead of by
sight, coffee
morphed into a beverage which could be accessible to those outside the wealthy
class and still taste good.”
“Coffee
Chronicles: Coffee’s History in America, A Short Primer,” Allison Hemler
By the 1900s, coffee was a preferred drink for the wealthy urban
dwellers, because it was still too expensive for the majority of Americans. The
development of the Coffee Exchange and improvements in shipping, advancements
in roasting technology and a preference for taste also boosted the availability
to a wider public.
World War II slowed that process and cheaper Robusta beans made in
roads, but the advertising campaigns for “coffee breaks” in the 1950s created
the atmosphere that led to the appearance of “coffee shops” and “coffee houses”
that spread the word into the counter-cultures of the Beatnik and Hippie eras.
These in turn led to the comfortable atmosphere of overstuffed sofas and the
perception of coffee as the drink most convivial to friendly discussion.
Another instrument for the promotion of coffee to the national drink was
the appearance of the beverage on the increasingly influential medium of
television. In my family, coffee was the only hot drink and, more often than
not for adults, served during meals. Wine and beer were only served at
celebration meals.
During the 1970s, the widely popular crime series, Twin Peaks, raised coffee to the level
of a connoisseur’s drink with the line “Now, that’s a cup of coffee.” By this
time, Americans were well-versed in the appreciation of this all-occasions drink,
therefore my first visit to the British Isles was an eye-opener. In habitants
of the country of the Magna Carta had no idea what coffee should taste like.
For the remainder of the weeks I spent there, I drank tea, even when, according
to my fellow B&Bers, it was “too weak to come out of the pot.”
Coffee reached celebrity status in the 1980s, when the series, Friends hit the airways and made a huge
difference to coffee consumption when the series was picked up by the
independent telly networks in English-speaking countries around the world. The
system of franchising and chain stores also extended the spread of “coffeemania”
when enterprises such as Peet’s, Tully’s, La Boulangerie, among others moved into
neighborhoods.
As citizens of an open society, Americans have embraced coffee and
coffee rituals from around the world. We have also opened our taste buds to the
joys of exotic teas but it is coffee that holds our hearts in thrall, as an
emblem of our long-held and hard-won independence.
