Coffeehouse

“ The coffee-house is itself—as, indeed, we found most of the native coffeehouses of the country—a model of good order, wholly relieved of riotous manner, and the very embodiment of ease and cleanliness. ”

“ In short, this coffee-maker became famous throughout the town; so much so, that a very rich man—one noted in those parts—was unable longer to control his curiosity and made a visit to the coffeehouse of which he had heard such flattering reports.
While the youth was preparing an especially delicious cup for him, the visitor sat in almost open-mouthed admiration of his attractive young host. After drinking the coffee he astonished the young man with these words:
“Ai, master coffee-maker! I have a daughter [176] whose hand many are seeking in marriage. ”

“ Your own prudence will, I doubt not, direct you to take a place every evening amongst the ingenious, in the corner of a certain coffeehouse in this town, where you will receive a turn equally right as to wit, religion, and politics: As likewise to be as frequent at the playhouse as you can afford, without selling your books. ”

“ It was furnished with chess-boards, backgammon-tables, newspapers, pamphlets, &c. in all the forms of a city coffeehouse. But the most extraordinary circumstance in his whole domestick arrangement, was that of a detached room in one of the extremities of the house, called the tavern. As he was himself a very temperate man, and many of his guests were of the same disposition, the quantity of wine for the use of the common room was but moderate ”

“ A plain room, divided into plain stalls by varnished partitions, and fitted with plain Pembroke tables, papers, periodicals, and magazines, not quite guiltless of coffee stains and bread-and-butter spots, a neat waitress, economical of speech, and who is forever ringing the changes between two refrains of “coffee and slice,” and “tea and an hegg”—are common to all coffee-houses. There is more deal in some, more mahogany in others; there are aristocratic coffee-houses, where they serve you silver salt-castors with your muffins, and silver cream-jugs with your coffee ”

“ It was stupid custom which insisted that any and every transaction should be carried out at a tavern, where continual sipping made men unfit for business. Coffee, on the contrary, was a "wakeful" drink. And the company of the coffee-house enabled its frequenter to follow the proper study of man, mankind. The triumphant conclusion was that a well-regulated coffee-house was "the sanctuary of health, the nursery of temperance, the delight of frugality, an academy of civility, and free-school of ingenuity." ”

“ To answer all these and many other good and useful purposes, Coffee Houses have been universally deemed the most convenient places of resort, because at a small expense of time or money, persons wanted may be found and spoke with, appointments may be made, current news heard, and whatever it most concerns us to know. In all cities, therefore, and large towns that I have seen in the British dominions, sufficient encouragement has been given to support one or more Coffee Houses in a genteel manner. ”

“ Near the coffee-houses are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries—in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafés constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor, which is furnished with very plain sofas and cushions; and music and dancing always abound, of the most unrefined description. ”

“ Altogether the habit of the coffee-house is one that requires a certain leisure. Being a passion less violent and less shameful than others, I suppose, it is indulged in with more of the humanities. You do not bolt coffee as you bolt the fire-waters of the West, without ceremony, in retreats withdrawn from the public eye. Neither, having taken coffee, do you leave the coffee-house. On the contrary, there are reasons why you should stay—and not only to take another coffee. ”

“ It was obviously impossible to pour out his own coffee and leave her the remainder. Should he ring for the waiter? No, the coffee should act as master of the ceremonies and bridge the gulf between them. Placing the coffee-pot and the milk-jug on the hearth, he waited, substituting a cigarette for his briar, lest its rich, juicy note might prove unmusical to feminine ears. For ten minutes he waited. Had the waiter merely made a mistake in bringing two cups instead of one? Possibly at this very moment she was enjoying her coffee in the dining-room. ”

“ A French coffee-house is a place well worth visiting by a stranger, more especially a [Pg 113] Yankee stranger. I will therefore detain you a little longer from the brilliant congregation of beauty and gallantry in the assembly room, and introduce you for a moment into this café and to its inmates. As the coffee houses here do not differ materially from each other except in size and richness of decoration, though some of them certainly are more fashionable resorts than others, the description of one of them will enable you perhaps to form some idea of other similar establishments in this city. ”

“ The fame of the good coffee, which was better than most people found at home, spread far and near, and larger and larger numbers of clerks, workingmen and others, turned their steps daily, at lunch time, towards the Central Coffee-House. It was so much better than the poor stuff served in most of the eating-houses; and, with the sweet roll added, so much better than the free lunch and glass of beer or whisky with which too many had been accustomed to regale themselves. ”

“ It is growing late and time for one’s coffee. The little tobacco-shop and café around the corner I find an excellent place for café au lait. The coffee is delicious and made when one chooses to arrive, not stewed like soup, iridescent in color, and bitter with chicory, as one finds it in many of the small French hotels. Two crescents, flaky and hot from the bakery next door, and three generous pats of unsalted butter, complete this morning repast, and all for the modest sum of twelve sous, with three sous to the garçon who serves you, with which he is well pleased. ”

“ If the accommodation consists only of a coffee-room, 30 to 40 feet long, with conveniences for serving light refreshments, and a small sleeping room adjoining, plain furniture and fittings might be provided for £100 or less. In connection with other arrangements, moveable stalls or barrows may be employed at small cost. These stalls may be supplied with provisions from the Coffee Publichouse, and wheeled to points where they are likely to attract the custom of working men at meal times, or on their way to work. ”

“ But the superlative coffee of the Broad Street Station lunch counter generally lures me on.
What mundane joy can surpass the pleasure of approaching the station lunch counter, with full ten minutes to satisfy a morning appetite! “Morning, colonel,” says the waiter, recognizing a steady customer. “Wheatcakes and coffee,” you cry. With one deft gesture, it seems, he has handed you a glass brimming with ice water and spread out a snowy napkin. In another moment here is the coffee, with the generous jug of cream. You splash in a large lump of ice to make it cool enough to drink. ”

“ Here and there around these coffee stalls, which are generally kept by old men or dilapidated and ancient women, you will see a couple of drunken or half sober roysterers, who have been on the tramp all night, and have at this early hour of the morning reached Covent Garden to get a cup of hot coffee in the market, which will clear the fumes of the liquor away, before they stagger home to a fond and anxious wife or an unrelenting landlady. ”

“ Her special business is to make everybody happy; to crack the great white sugar-loaf into bits with a pair of pincers—no machine-made dominoes for Lemois—and to turn the coffee-roaster—an old-fashioned, [13] sheet-iron drum swinging above a brazier of hot coals—and to cool its contents by tossing them in a pan—much as an Egyptian girl winnows wheat. It is a pity you never tasted her coffee, served in the garden—old Leà on the run with it boiling-hot to your table. ”

“ The advantage of a coffee house compared with a "publick-house" is thus set forth:
First, In regard of easy expense. Being to wait for or meet a friend, a tavern-reckoning soon breeds a purse-consumption: in an ale house, you must gorge yourself with pot after pot.... But here, for a penny or two, you may spend two or three hours, have the shelter of a house, the warmth of a fire, the diversion of company; and conveniency, if you please, of taking a pipe of tobacco ”

“ I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their different places, where, however, a stranger is always well received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoatree than a Tory will be seen at the Coffee House, St James'.
The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts go to the Smyrna. There are other little coffee houses much frequented in this neighborhood—Young Man's for officers; Old Man's for stock jobbers, paymasters and courtiers, and Little Man's for sharpers. ”

“ And what is true of the coffee is true of the coffee-house. Working-men, in the main, frequent these places, and greasy, dirty places they are, with out one thing about them to cherish decency in a man or put self-respect into him. Tablecloths and napkins are unknown. A man eats in the midst of the debris left by his predecessor, and dribbles his own scraps about him and on the floor. In rush times, in such places, I have positively waded, through the muck and mess that covered the floor and I have managed to eat because I was abominably hungry and capable of eating anything. ”

“ Early in the morning you rise refreshed and vigorous, ready after a walk round the old-fashioned garden to devour unlimited supplies of ham and eggs washed down by coffee. It is only in real old coaching inns that they possess the secret of brewing old English coffee—a beverage that owes nothing to the poisonous intoxicating berry of Arabia, discovered by the brothers Shirley. We believe it is manufactured by roasting and grinding some species of scarlet runner. As a breakfast drink it is unequalled. ”

“ The awning is a protection for the customer not against the sun—a luminary from whose assaults the London coffee-stalls have little to fear—but against the rain. Thanks to these awnings, and the chattiness of the fat, jolly man, and the warmth exhaled by the urns, and the circumstance that the public houses are shut, our coffee-stalls are able to sell two brownish beverages, called respectively coffee and tea, which otherwise could hardly hope to achieve the honour of human consumption. ”

“ Its familiar aspect may attract tipplers who may be not indisposed to turn over a new leaf provided the break in their habits and associations be not too violent. At the same time, it is to be borne in mind that more table accommodation is required in a Coffee Publichouse than in a beerhouse, or gin palace. The larger the ground floor, therefore, other things being equal, the more suitable the premises. ”

“ XXVIII. JOHNNY APPLESEED
I built a fire by the roadside opposite the palatial hotel and made our coffee. “It’s like lighting a fire and making yourself a personal cup of coffee on Broadway,” said Lindsay, “but it’s fine.” It’s a dramatic act and startles the imagination. The coffee-pot could be made the emblem of revolt—“Go West, young man, with a coffee-pot. You can live on nothing a year with a coffee-pot. Figure it out, how little money you need to live in the wilds!”
[178] Vachel is all for giving the business man and clerk and industrial worker a three-months’ vacation. ”

“ The coffee-house where well-made, unadulterated coffee might be obtained would be a formidable rival to the gin-palace. As it is, however, the art of making coffee—if ever possessed at all in England—has been so completely lost that the increasing disuse of the beverage is no matter of surprise. ”

“ More than one crew coming in half frozen were glad of the soup and coffee which were sent down to them in cans with baskets of bread. And this little coffee-room has been the outgrowth of just such hospitality. There are too many of the men to have in my house. I simply entertain them elsewhere, and I like to go and talk to them, and sometimes Petronella goes. ”

“ In some parts of London women leaving the factory at midday may often be seen taking a cold and unsatisfying meal in the open air—on a doorstep or in a corner, anywhere—exposed to the inclemency of the weather. Wherever suitable coffee-room accommodation has been provided for them, working women have gladly availed themselves of it. One of the houses of the People's Café Company in High Street, Whitechapel, has many customers of this class. ”

“ The coffee-houses, in a non-reading community, were quite an important political as well as social institution. They were of every kind, prelatical, popish, Puritan, scientific, literary, Whig, Tory. Whatever a man's notions might be, he could find in London, in a double sense, a coffee-house to his taste. ”

“ Every profession, trade, class, and party had its favorite coffee house. "The bitter black drink called coffee," as Mr. Pepys described the beverage, brought together all sorts and conditions of men; and out of their mixed association there developed groups of patrons favoring particular houses and giving them character. It is easy to trace the transition of the group into a clique that later became a club, continuing for a time to meet at the coffee house or the chocolate house, but eventually demanding a house of its own. ”

“ Ask your friends if they have ever sought refreshment at a coffee-stall. I wager that perhaps only the Bad Boy of the Family or Dance Club Jane have experienced the happiness of sausages at 3 A.M. in this temple of romance.
The coffee-stall at the street corner is the only thing left in our modern world that approximates to the mediæval inn or guest-house. Hotels are graded and standardized, and you know exactly the kind of people you will find in them. Good hotels are so much alike that patrons often have to ask the hall porter whether they are in London or Rome. ”