Empire: World History - 31. Conquering the Night: The History of Coffee

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Coffee is everywhere today, but where does it come from? Was it originally a sex drug? What is the connection between Starbucks and a medieval goat herder? Why are coffee houses political? Listen as Anita and William are joined by Cemal Kafadar to discuss the history of the substance. LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/empire Twitter: @Empirepoduk Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mparpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Durimple. Yeah, I mean, you know, you're a bit fancy. What am I looking at in your background? That is not your usual abode. What's that about?

It is not my usual abode. I'm calling you from Hyderabad, and I'm staying, I'm glad to say, not at my expense, in the Falak Numa Palace, which is now a hotel, which was the residence of two of the last Ottoman princesses. There were two princesses who were the daughters of Abdul Majid II, is that right? Or the granddaughters or the nieces, anyway, when they were shipped out at the end of the Ottoman Empire to Nice, and from Nice they were married off to. that was then the richest family in the world, which was an exam of Hyderabad's family. And there were two of them. One was called Dura Shavar, and one was called Nilufa. And they ended up here. And I'm in Hyderabad on a completely different business. But bizarrely have been put in a former Ottoman residence in the middle of India. Can I just say, can I just say, never has the word koi been put anywhere near your name, not even in the same solar system as your name.

But when you say, I'm here for some other business, no, not enough. I think pod people need to know what are. I know. Why are you there? What has happened? Because that is a whopper of a story. It's a good story. And it's a happy story. Rare, rare, happy story about history and conservation. 20 years ago, I came to Hyderabad and ended up writing a book called White Mughals, which was the story of James Achilles-Cat-Patrick and his remarkable princess lover, who was called Gerunisa. And the two, well, first of all, Kherna Nisa got pregnant. The two ended up getting married under Islamic law. He converted to Islam.

to marry her. This is all in 1798. And he managed to sign a peace treaty between the East India Company and the Nizam of Hyderabad, which resulted in two buildings being built. One was a remarkable Paladian Villa, the largest and most spectacular East India Company building in southern India, that looks almost identical to the White House of Washington, built around the same time. It's a very similar model. It has the same bow front on one side and a flat front on the other, probably taken from the same Vitruvus Britannicus or one of those Georgian patent books. And anyway, this building was looked as if it was about to collapse when I first went to Hyderabad in 1998.

And at the beginning of the book, I put a little plea for funds. I remember. And people did come. They lobbed you a couple of quid here and there, didn't they? And a few people sent a fiver. A couple people said a tenor. And then someone, an anonymous donor, who I met this afternoon, astonishingly, I don't think just because of my book, but I think he had read the book and did this, wrote a check for

one million pounds. No! That's, oh, that's so great. And then that was matched by the Wonderful World Monuments Fund and many other generous donors, and I'm in Hyderabad celebrating the final restoration of this extraordinary building, which opens tomorrow. This is so marvellous. Listen, can you take loads and loads of pictures and, you know, put them up on the Twitter feed

for Empire Put. I think this is so fabulous. And we have to do a whole thing on white mobiles. I'm just determined. When we come back to India, that is on our list. But, because I've got my journalist Antenna up, who is the person who gave you one million pounds? I'm not in liberty to say. It is a lot of Stoda, but he is an English lover of architecture. He'd previously given generously to the World Monuments Fund to the restoration of Stowe, another amazing Georgian building. And we spent the afternoon going around the Piger Tumes together this afternoon. Well, that's fabulous. Do you know what I did this afternoon? Ask me. You really told me. You cleaned out the guinea pig. I cleaned out the guinea pig's hutch.

I put two loads of laundry on. I found out none of my children's trousers fit them anymore. See, I mean, I think we have comparable lives, is all I'm saying. I have to say, this doesn't happen every day. It is an unusual day, but it's very nice to be. It's monstrous. I am so happy for you. I know how much that would mean to you. Just to remind you, those of you who might have missed our last fabulous podcast with Bettany Hughes, we had a hefty dose of estrogen last podcast. Thank God, by the way, that we had some estrogen injected into proceedings. There have been enough hunting and a fight and a killing. But we talked to Bettany about the women of the Ottoman Empire from the very heights, you know,

those women who corresponded with Elizabeth I, the first, right down to the slave girls who were in cupboards in the Haram, graping letters saying, help me. So, you know, I thought that was an extraordinary thing. What struck you the most about this? I think exactly what you just said. There's extraordinary stories of these newly discovered messages in the top capy harem cupboards and furniture. But also, for me, what was fascinating is I spent a lot of my life studying the Mughal empire and the parallels between the power of the more powerful women of the Ottoman harem and the same thing in Delhi and Agra with the Mughal women. So Jahanara, for example, the daughter of Shah Jahan, built this extraordinary caravansara in the

middle of Delhi and mosques and these were powerful women. And again, you know, it goes against all our stereotypes of what it means to be a Muslim woman, to see these women building great imperial buildings. I mean, this is a podcast. Go back, if you haven't heard it, which is filled with edifying facts. I mean, please don't be fooled by the fact that we all ended the podcast by shouting hot sex, because we did. It was not the tone of the entire. podcast, but we certainly did scream hot sex. We're not talking hot sex this week. I think I maintained decorum throughout, Anita. You absolutely didn't. You did not. But it's not hot sex. It is hot coffee this week. The ubiquitous cup of Joe. We've got a very, very special guest who's

listening and chuckling to all that we are wittering about at the moment. But it's high time. We brought him into proceedings. It absolutely is. So we are very, very lucky today to have the doyen of Ottoman studies of anywhere in the world today, the great Professor Jamal Kaffada of Harvard University, professor of Turkish studies, author of a spectacular array of publications on Janissaries and dervishes and Suleiman the magnificent, and all the things we've been talking about. And in fact, really, we should have had Jamal on every episode from the beginning of this entire series. But I particularly wanted to save him, because three or four years ago, he came to our Jaipur Literature Festival and gave what was not only

one of the best lectures we've ever had, but certainly the lecture which had the best title. of any lecture in the history of the festival, which was, share, share, share. How dark is the history of the night. How black the story of coffee. How bitter the tale of love. Jamal, welcome. You know what? It was really funny that lecture that you gave because William was on one side of the hall.

And I was completely on the other. And we both came out. I didn't know you were there. William and I didn't think you either. But it's one of the few that I write notes down. And I couldn't read them, any of them today. My body was terrible. But it was just filled with such goodness.

And also it linked a whole variety of things that we take for granted. You know, a Starbucks. I went to a Starbucks this morning on arrival in Hyderabad at the airport. I didn't think twice where the coffee had come from or the existence of coffee as a beverage universal around the world. It's something to think about. But Jamal's lecture pointed out, of course, that like with anything else, it has a history.

It started somewhere. It's something that was invented. And it spread around the world. through the Ottoman Empire. Yeah. Jamal, first of all, I mean, that title itself is so poetic. Where did it come from? Working on the history of coffee and coffee houses, I came interested in the history of the nighttime.

The conquest of the night, as you call it in your essay. It's a lovely word. That is right. Because I think a conquest of the night started unfolding around the same time. And the nighttime became far more occupied, far more busy, more active for all sorts of people, for social reasons, for labor, but also for entertainment. And new forms of entertainment came up. Pleasure and leisure is the two things you said.

That's right. The shadow puppet theater and performative storytelling in new forms, though it's a medieval genre called Meddah in Arabic and various languages that use that Arabic base. These new forms of entertainment were performing. mostly at nighttime in coffee houses or in environments, homes where coffee was being consumed as a social beverage. So the three things came together. And by the way, the new types of tales I thought were different. So where you started, sex, love, coffee.

The two came together in a big way. At least tales of love did. And certainly when coffee arrives in Europe, everyone associates it with, it was kind of regarded as a sort of Viagra, wasn't it? Well, sort of via and also causing erectile dysfunction. I've read both things. Exactly. Exactly. The latter, there is a 1675 women's petition in London posted on walls.

This you can find easily on the internet. 1675, women's petition against coffee, which they say, take away their men. You could take it as a social space. Clearly more is intended because there's men's response that came up and was posted in London the following month or so. where men defend their performance. Very word. No, in Galenic medicine, coffee was considered to be not so good, if consumed more than moderately, for men.

Because men have a dry temperament, and coffee is drying. In fact, the women's petition on London refers to it as that drying, infibling liquor. Really? Infebling liquor. So in Ottoman discourse, before it ever really got, to Europe, physicians were writing about it and they were saying that if men consume more of it than moderately, then their temperament, which is already dry, is going to be dried out.

Oh, I see temperament. Temperament, okay. I thought of something else entirely. Temperament, okay, got it. But which is the key medical category for Gallenic medicine, right? Yeah, okay, okay. Well, listen, we're going to come to all of that in a minute. I feel like we're jumping the gun and I don't want to because this is, you know,

from the first sip to the last sip of what you. have to offer us. It's all delicious. So let's start from the very, very beginning. Where did coffee come from? How far back does it go? And who do we have to thank for what is, for many people listening to this, a lifesaver? All right. So the natural history of coffee is very ancient. We don't know exactly well, but it's from the Yemen, Ethiopia region on either side of the horn of Africa. And it's, what really concerns us is when it turns into a social beverage, when it is more than as something out there as a plant, which may have been used incidentally by people, but did become a social beverage when some Sufis in Yemen.

Actually, the very man to whom this is attributed is from Tunis, Shazili, Al-Shazili, a founder of a Sufi order who was like the wandering dervishes, mystics of all different faiths. He was also a man of travels. And when he was in Yemen, he found this substance to be very useful. and people said it made them discover that it made you nimble in the mind. Okay, but there is a step. How did our founder of the Sufi Order know that it made you nimble? So Willie and I are both reveling in a story.

Will you go and tell it. Yes, as a goat herd, I feel a bit proprietorial about this story. The story always is, is that a goat heard was watching his goats on a hillside of the emmon, that they go frequently to this bush. nibble at the fruits and then start jumping around. Get frisky. Get frisky. They get frisky goats.

So the man thought, I'll have a bit of that. I'd like to be a bit frisky. So tried it thereafter. I know. The story is repeated often and it may be true, but the history of coffee, like the history of many substances, full of these colorful tales. But at least we do know that from that story of the goat herd, it did not turn into a social beverage.

It did not stick. Okay. So first of all, people what chewed it as if it were a snack. I mean, I heard that right at the beginning, it wasn't a drink at all. People just chewed on the berries. Is that what you know to be true? Possibly, again, people say that, but I've never seen anything that substantiates it. Maybe confusing it with gut, the way you chew.

Yeah, exactly. So the thing is, I'm sure people knew of it as a substance. A plant out there, goats may have been visible with strange behavior. The goat herd himself may have tried. it and found it to be, you know. I'm all for frisky goat herds. There must have been things of that sort, but this man in Yemen, decided to turn it into something that one could use regularly.

Right. Okay. For one's social events, for one's rituals. Okay, so rituals. I'm really interested in the difference between the ritual side of things and then what it becomes, which is a social cohesion thing. So at the beginning, I mean, for those who don't know, the Sufis, the dervishes, they I believe that it's a much more spiritual form of Islam.

So this mind-altering quality that coffee has, that was the thing that appealed, Jamal? Yes. Well, mind-altering, but also a substance that gave you that nimbleness, which you need if you want to perform all night with your incantations, with your conversations, you know, eventually Jewish mystics discovered the same. And the story is well told by colleagues who studied it. starting from the very pious city of Safed.

Safed was the big center of neocabbalism. And they did the same thing, a century and a half later than the Yemeni story. And this is in the countryside beyond Jerusalem, towards Galilee. That's right. Coffee houses were established as early as the 1570s there, and people, again, mystics, neo-Cabbalists, were using coffee to be able to keep awake at night. And they were concerned with keeping awake at night, because both forms of mysticism want to do a lot with the night.

What did the coffee, what did it look like and taste like at this time when they were using it? You're talking about the 1400s, so what would it have been like? And what would have been the rituals of making it? About the rituals of making it, I'm not sure, at least I don't know very much, but they were brewed in ibricks. Those nice things that you still see in the Arab world with the pouring lip and the pointed hat on top. Oh, yes, so a pointed hat. Made of metal, made of clay.

Made of metal. Made of metal. Okay, got you. Nowadays, mostly metal, but you also had a part ceramic form of it. Right. How fascinating. So initially, it's mystics of both faiths. Do you think it's an accident that the Sufis and the Kabbalists happen to stumble on this?

Or is there a link between the two? Not at all. Both of them were deeply interested in keeping the mind active, nimble. at night, but also the psychoactive quality, the way it was mind-altering, as Anita was saying. Actually, we do know also that in the 1300s, the use of opium or opiate substances became far more widespread for, again, mind-expanding, mind-altering experiments, which became part of that world in which also different forms of organized Sufism and mysticism, the Muslim or other forms of mysticism were developing.

So in the early days, is it true that mocha becomes, you know, we use that word now all the time, and you're going to order, you know, like a moccuccino or a mocha. That used to be the center, did it, of production? When did it suddenly become produced and then move its way into the Ottoman Empire? Talk us through that transition. Yes. So during the 1400s, it was slowly, the consumption was slowly moving northwards.

And at least by the middle of that century, it hit the hijazz, Mecca Medina, that is where big congregations come together, right? That's a big body of people who are ready-made consumers if coffee appeals to them. And it did. From the middle of the 15th century, we do know that it was moving up in the Arabian Peninsula and was being consumed in the hijazz during the Hajj season. So it was pilgrims. Ah, okay, so Hajd Pilgrims would have brought it, filtered it back throughout those countries.

Exactly. And the point of Mokka, I believe, was that it was where the coffee trade and the chocolate trade both coincided. And therefore, it was where people mixed the do experimentally. Chocolate coming in from the new world, coming in from Portuguese. So European merchants were busy in Mokka in the 17th century especially. But before that, circa 1500, one century after Yemen, one may consider this slow, it hits Cairo, another. big population center with huge demand for new substances, for all kinds of entertainment, socializing. Cairo was a big center for all kinds of activities that we later associate with urban modernity, shadow puppet theater being included. Evliet Chenebiz talks about Cairo as a very wicked place, isn't he? He's very shocked by the number of prostitutes, by the number of boys on sale and this sort of thing. And coffee was part of that world, the Cairo underground? Very much so. Very much so.

One of our earliest visual representations of a coffee house is from Cairo, from the Nile. There's a coffee house we know, in fact, to have existed spread across the two banks of the Nile. And one could do drive-in, or row-in, rather. And the picture shows that. You could come there with your boat, get some, you know, cups of coffee, row down the Nile, and then bring it back. But we do also know from Evelia Cherlevis' account. of Cairo that people played games of, how to put it, flirtation. So once you had your coffee cup, you could take the saucer and let it float toward the

next boat where your lover or your potential lover or the person, let's say, was on the boat. And if she picked it up or if he picked it up, it means they were interested. Okay, so we're back to hot sex. Thank you. Listen, can I just ask this question? The coffee answers. I think that we thought, hot coffee outside. Everything comes back to the same thing.

But the coffee houses themselves were very masculine places, weren't they? Women did go or didn't go. We're separated. What was the politics of that? In general, no, they did not go. But this is an open-air coffee house in Cairo. The weather permits it. And the depiction, that representation, has a couple of women in it, which is possible.

So it really depends a bit on the climate, on the architectural, spatial configuration. of the space, but it was mostly a male space. But when there was a big show of a performer, be a shadow puppet theater performer, the coffee house could function as a theater. A curtain would be drawn in the middle of the coffee house so that on the right side and the left side, different sexes, different genders would be seated. Women mixing with the kids, the kids going on both sides of the curtain are stories we read about. Well, look, we're going to take a break. We're going to come back on the other side of this curtain, and we're going to talk specifically about the way in which coffee became synonymous with the Ottomans. So we've come to Egypt.

We've come from the early beginnings. But now we want to know, is it Constantinople, is it Istanbul? When does it take hold of that particular city and through that city, the world? Join us after the break. Hello, welcome back. We are very, very lucky to have Jamal Kafta with us, who is, well, he is the stimulant in today's Cup of Coffee podcast. And we left you, Jamal, just before the break. You were telling us about Cairo and how it became part of the luscious atmosphere of Cairo.

When does it come to the Ottomans? Because it is they, isn't it, who just channel it off all over the world? Right. You know, Cairo became Ottoman in 15, 16, 17, and North Africa soon thereafter. Suleiman, the magnificent, pulls it into the empire. Right, Salaim and Suleiman. And meantime, the actual actor, in North Africa is the first corsair leader and then admiral called Barbarossa.

You may have heard about. Yeah. We deep with Barbarossa added the two Barbarossa's. The very, very first reference to coffee in Istanbul I found in the archives is in the home of Barbarossa. Barbarossa's home is described for particular legal reasons and there is a coffee chamber in it in 1539. Brilliant.

That makes him like a multi-millionaire with a Starbucks in the basement. I mean, they do that. That's exactly he's the prototype. That's hilarious. But the thing is, this is before coffee houses were opened in Istanbul as social spaces. In other words, women were always a big part of the story of coffee, but mostly in homes, where also socializing took place, obviously, but not in the same way as like a coffee house, which is a public, public space.

Yeah. I'm still not clear what it tasted like and how it was made. I mean, I'm thinking it's not like the cup of coffee people are drinking. while listening to this podcast is a very different product then, isn't it? Yes. You know how to make Turkish coffee, I guess. No, you've got to tell us. You've got to tell us, my Turkish friend.

Not everybody does. So tell me the perfect way to make a perfect cup of Turkish coffee. The perfect way to make a perfect cup of Turkish coffee is by having these little pots, GESVE. Ground coffee beans? Would that be it? Oh, you would use ground coffee beans, but I mean the little pot that you then, And preferably you would use hot ashes because the idea is that it should simmer.

It should come to a boiling point very slowly rather than simmer. Okay, not scorch, right? Right. Very, very slowly you make it rise to the point where it bubbles. And then you take the cream, the foam on top, pour it onto your little pot. Yeah. And then when it boils, really boils, you pour the rest of it, hoping to keep the foam. at the top of your little pot.

Okay. But no milk sees it. This is just foam from the coffee. No milk. No milk, no sugar. Okay. Until the sugar comes in when more bitter coffee from the European colonies in Java, in Southeast Asia, as well as in the Caribbean, start coming in.

But that's a later part of the story. I mean, I read somewhere because we are obsessed on this podcast. I don't know if you've heard us before. We are obsessed with Roxalana. And I saw this story that she actually took her coffee with some water and a cube of Turkish delight. And that then became the staple of the coffee ritual. Yes. I don't know if it really started with Roxelana. Stop bursting my balloons.

We don't even know if Roxelana consumed coffee. But she may have. And if she did, she had taste enough to do exactly what you said. namely keep the coffee black. One needs to keep the coffee black, but if you want sweet, you can have something else on the side, like Turkish Delight. You know, the Greeks also consume what they now call Greek coffee, which they used to call Turkish coffee. But I mean, the Greeks of the Ottoman world always bring some little cup of water and some sweets with the coffee, which is good taste. And Turkish Delight, is that something that originates in Turkey, in Greece,

So in the Ottoman world? In the Ottoman times, I think in the 18th century, we do have a maker of that thing called Locum. I don't know how far, how much older it is, but it got this good English translation as Turkish delight. Locum is Turkish or Greek, or both? It's the same word of both. Both. You know, the word Turkish was used in the early modern era in so many different ways that sometimes

it meant all Muslims. All Ottomans, et cetera. Like more. Yes. Like more. Not all Ottomans loved the coffee thing because, I mean, Sultan Murad VIII really didn't like coffee. Now, what was his problem?

Because he went as far as to sentence people to death for drinking coffee. A bad day for Starbucks. He thought it led people to too much leisurely activity. It made people not disciplined enough. that, you know, in his mind it was associated not just with the substance, but with the whole lifestyle, with the whole socializing around it. And by then, tobacco had joined the scene. Circa 1600 English merchants brought from the new world tobacco,

and one started consuming the two together. And I hope you don't mind. I will cite you an Arabic poem. No, let love it. Adduhan by a kahu, which means tobacco. or without coffee is like sex without lust. We're back to sex.

Here we are again. But I mean, the world of coffee and socializing around coffee was a very worldly thing. This is exactly what Murad was fearing. Murad was worried that his people were turning into, you know, effeminate socializers, people who just spent time instead of working on their military discipline, especially the soldiers he worried about, Instead of working on their military drills and training, they were just going around coffee houses telling tales to each other. Brilliant.

Tales of love, maybe. I should say that exactly the same time, in the 17th century, slightly later, you get coffee and tobacco arriving where I am today, Hyderabad. The first descriptions, the old descriptions I've read of coffee appearing anywhere is in the court in the exam of Hyderabad, and specifically it served at night. And they describe the, there's an English, an early East India company, merchant who does, no, a diplomat, who describes going to one of the Nizam of Hyderabad's nighttime der bars and it's all lit up with hundreds of lamps and they're serving strong black coffee in small cups. Lighting is important, yes. And then and then at the same time you get these miniatures of early hooker houses, which isn't what isn't anything to do with hot sex,

it's to do with hookers as in the sense of Hubble bubbles. Oh yeah, like sheeshire is what people wood-core shishas today. And what you have is a man sitting there squatting with a round, bold water pipe and people queuing up for a puff. And there's a long line of 20 people in this miniature queuing up for a puff of the Hubble bubble or the shisha. And this is from Hyderabad in about 1700, the same time as the coffee. So the references to sex and love here really are not to juice it up, but I'm just trying to point out that it was part of a new world that we call the early modern world, which had a different approach to the joys of life and worldliness. And it did not go well much of the time with the disciplines of institutionalized religion, with the disciplines

of state, and came to loggerheads with the expectations of someone like Murat the 4th. I love this. Who himself, by the way, who himself was very much a bon vivor, but only in his very, very private the environment. Hypocrates. Otherwise, he even banned women from crossing the street to see their neighbors at some point. Honestly. I mean, I don't like him.

But the coffee house culture, I mean, in Britain, and we're going to come to that hopefully very quickly. But in Istanbul at the time, you had different coffeehouses for different pursuits, like merchants would be in one. The genisceries would have their own coffee. Could you not go into a genisserie coffee house, for example, if you were a a mere scribe like, you know, William or I, well, I could definitely not go but William. You could, but you might feel, there was no ban on that, but you might feel alienated,

you might feel uncomfortable. There were many coffee houses, by the way, where all kinds of clients could come in, Muslim, non-Muslim, or all kinds of professions. These are the big cafe-like coffee houses. And then there were specialised ones. Was this a new thing? Were the institutions before this, where people would have gathered in that way? Thank you, William, for asking nothing like it. This is really a very new form of socializing, a very new form of conviviality. People pointed it out then. It's not just my observation or a modern scholar's observation.

In 1551 or thereabouts after Cairo, like half a century after Cairo, private users like Barbarossa have appeared. But two Syrian merchants are credited for creating the first public, coffee house in totally closed space because Istanbul's climate demanded it in Istanbul, in an area which was already famous for a world of entertainment, for all kinds of social activity and performance, performers. So in that area, they established it and it caught like wildfire. It did catch, yeah. But also the wildfire part of this spread so quickly. There's a beautiful image I've seen actually. It's in the Chesterbiti

library. You know the one, right? Yes, yes. So I think it's what 1500s and it's men, I'm trying to remember it clearly, but men in very brightly colored turbines in a coffee house in Istanbul and it's it's in a, you know, now in an Irish collection which I think is rather marvelous. When does the coffee as well as the imagery

first hit Europe and Britain in particular? Yeah. Around 1650, one century after Istanbul. That's quite early. It's quite early, exactly. And in Europe, the same thing happens. Once it starts, it catches like wildfire. Within half a century after Istanbul, you have 600 in the city alone and thousands across the empire, the Ottoman Empire.

Within half a century after the British case, Oxford, London. Oxford's first. 1649, I think. But the one in London is 1652 and it still stands. Is that the Pascoorozo? Yes. Yes. Ah, no, we should talk about Pasco Rose.

I mean, it's a lovely story about Pasca Rose. Tell me more. I mean, this is the Levant Company. We have to thank for so much of the, you know, the introduction of these exotic goods into Great Britain. But Pasca Rose used to work for a man called Daniel Edwards, who worked for the Levant company. And Daniel Edwards had light coffee because he spent some time in the Levant. But he got sick and tired of people bunging up his house until the early hours of the morning. He wanted them to get out.

So Pascoe, he was his son. who made this fabulous coffee. He said, just go and do it across the road in a shed. So he brought him a shed to do it in. So they weren't in his house when he wanted to do things. And that was the first coffee house in London. And I think within 10 years, they say after Pasco Reza did the first coffee house, there were 83 coffee houses in London in 10 years.

And is there any sense that it reaches Britain before it reaches somewhere you'd expect to find it, like Venice? Was Venice first? Or? It's a bit surprising. Again, yes, Northern Italy is first in terms of private users, like in private environments, especially Jews connected between the Eastern Mediterranean and Northern Italy. So the Jews who were in the Venetian ghetto would be trading with other Jews in Istanbul and sharing the love of coffee? Exactly. But these were not yet coffee houses. Like in Istanbul, home use was came before the public use. And what's the story of the Oxford coffee house? Was this scholars swatting for their finals?

I read of exactly, that's my thinking. I read of a coffee society established just a couple of years before the one in, before the coffee house in London that Anita talked about. And I think in my mind, it is still connected to that nimbleness of the mind at nighttime. Mystics needed, students need it. Students love it. Nowadays, they must be the most ardent consumers of coffee at night, right? I was when I was a student.

Sure. Writing your essays later. Yeah. And the early coffee houses in London did very well. I mean, maybe partly because alcohol was found upon at that time. You know, this was an alternative that wasn't an intoxicant. You know, it wasn't something that, you know, that Cromwellian disapproval of getting out of your head on booze. It wasn't there for coffee houses.

But very quickly, as in Istanbul, as you know, you were alluding to earlier, they become hubs of British political intrigue. Very, very quickly. Is that true of the Istanbul ones too? Were they political? Yes. Very quickly after their establishment, people started writing about political gossip, political mobilization happening in them. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, I mean, it wasn't just our friend Marad who hated them.

Charles II hated them. He thought that his downthrow was being plotted in coffee houses. across the UK who tried to ban them. And one of the reasons that they were such a worry, they were so seditious in England, is because of this sort of marriage with the printing press, that people would come and they would put stuff up on the walls or on these long tables,

which I think is the same way that these coffee houses were formed in Turkey as well, where men of different classes, but doing the same kind of thing, would get the latest news, and then they would get the printouts, first of all, from either shipping companies, two hours before anyone else would see them, or the news from the court would come. And then people would write scurrilous things and share them and laugh and borediness.

And Charles I hated it. You know, he'd seen his father's head cut off. He didn't want to go the same way, and he thought the coffee house was the place this might happen. Similar political tensions were there around coffee houses from the get-go. And not just in Istanbul, of course, in other cities, rebellious communities gathered in them and took action and ban. And bands happened in many different parts of the Ottoman Empire regularly at times of political repression. What about you, we've been talking about leisure in coffee houses. My impression when I go to a modern tea house in Turkey is backgammon being played and the noise of dice hitting the wood and so on.

Is that what's going on in Ottoman tea houses? And does it go to British ones afterwards? Yeah, the Ottomans did not have tea houses, really. Tea House is a very 20th century thing in this geography, except maybe the very eastern part of Turkey towards Iran, because Iran took the tea earlier. How interesting. I didn't know that.

It's a different commercial network. Russia and Iran took the tea much earlier in that Eurasian space. But Turkey now fascinated with tea everywhere you find tea and sometimes not even any kind of coffee. That's a very 20th century development. Is it only the Levant company that is responsible for distributing and making, who's making money on this coffee that's now traveling all around Europe? Mosque Arab, at first, in Europe, yes, the Levant company and Dutch merchants, by the way. The Dutch are also very big, and the Dutch were the first to plant the Arabica bean successfully, to acclimatize it, namely, in their colonies in Java.

Really? The Java coffee begins then. Because when coffee became such a big deal in Europe, it obviously meant a lot in terms of trade balances. You buy so much from Yemen. Yemen hardly buys anything from you. And silver is flowing in that direction. So Yemen was so wealthy. You look at it today and you think of it in this hub of wealth. But also Kyrine merchants. Nelly Hanna writes about the coffee merchants of old Kairo. Yes, dear William. Cairo really is the hinge between the, you know, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean part and the Mediterranean part, and they benefited from this, from this international trade.

But again, the question of gaming, so that noise of, that noise of dice on board, is that part of the coffee house scene in Istanbul? Yes, that's very much a part of the coffee house scene. There is, in fact, a Fetwa, in one of the Fetva books I have read, where it is said that if the noise of Bacchaman is so high that people are not able to hear the Azzan, the Kestan, the call to prayer, then they shouldn't be playing. Because it could get very loud also with people betting and cheering, right? Betting was definitely forbidden, but people did it.

So betting and cheering around the backgammon game might get very noisy. And does that come to Britain with the coffee house? Is backgammon something that comes from the Ottoman Empire to Britain? I doubt if backgammon, but board games did become part of that very scene very quickly. Chess definitely was a course of it. But chess was always more cerebral and backgammon a bit more populist. Well, talking about populism, there are things that we owe to coffee even today. So I keep going back to the Levant Company and those people connected to it.

So have you heard of a man called William Harvey? William Harvey is the man who showed the world all about the circulation of the human body. They're the very first person to sort of map it and talk about it and understand that there was this network of vessels in the body. His brothers both worked for the Levant Company, and he became obsessed with the effect that coffee had on circulation and was a devotee of it. In fact, there's a lovely little quote from William Harvey who says, The Little Fruit is the source of happiness and wit. And apparently said this as he lay dying. He also had 50 pounds of coffee on hand at the time of his death, and he bequeathed it.

And it was deemed to be treasure to his colleagues of the London College of Physicians, so that as long as the supply lasted, they might gather once a month and drink it in his memory. Isn't that a lovely story? I love that. I love that. Take me back to this person you were talking about, Anita, Pasco Rose. Where's he from? So, I mean, it's Ragusa, isn't it? Which is now modern-day Dubrovnik. I think that's right, isn't it? Chimal? Yes, yes. And what do we know about Pasca Rose? What else do we know about him? Not so very much, but the character is very much like, what's his name, Procop, who established the very first coffee house in Paris, which still stands, by the way. It's now a coffee house and eatery, but the coffee house component is still quite there.

And Procop is also from the Mediterranean setting, from Sicily, we are told, engaged in mediation between merchants of the Levant and European merchants. And I think these folks are very interesting. They have not been in the radar of historians so much. Yeah, I mean, people are looking at Pasco Rose a bit more. First of all, you know, you say the coffee house in Paris is still standing. The coffee house that Pasco Rose set up is now a pub. So, you know, that's gone full circle.

However, he was so successful. He started making money, just hand over fist. There were queues outside Pascoeza. It's festival show. and then he has enough money to build a proper building. And then this proliferates. He falls out with his employer, why wouldn't you, if you're making that much money, and decides to go it alone?

We don't know how he ends. Apparently, I mean, it's sort of rumours of him having quite a miserable end. But by then, you know, within this 10-year period where now you have 83 coffee houses in London, they become the homes of some of the names which have had the most, you know, you're talking about nimbleness of mind, Samuel Peeps, Robert Hook, John Locke, Christopher Wren, Edmund Halley. I'm just trying to think, Balzac.

So Isaac Newton, this is, I think, right, did he dissect a dolphin on the table of a coffee house? I think that's right, you know. I think he did. He should have if he didn't. No, he absolutely. Balzac, the French novelist and playwrights.

You were talking about Paris in the 1800s. He loved coffee so much. It killed him. Yes. He tried too much coffee and that killed him. Try this at home, kids. You know, you could tell similar stories of Ottoman intellectual icons, similar names, if I just went through 10, 12 names of Ottoman intellectuals,

they were similarly part of the coffee house scene. One of them, Keatip Celeby, seems to have lost his life after a cup of coffee. Brilliant. I mean, how? After having a cup of coffee, yes. It killed him as well? Yes. Okay.

It's more of a company. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's funny. Sort of the similar kind of time in Germany, King Frederick, the Great of Germany, is waging more against coffee. Yes. I mean, you're aware he hated it so much. He wanted people to drink beer because the money was going out of his exchequer and paying for the coffee that people were crazy about.

But Germany produced beer. So if they're drinking more coffee, they're drinking less beer. So he hated it. And I've got a lovely quote here. It's a letter from 1799 from Frederick the Great. It is despicable to see how extensive the consumption of coffee is. If this is limited a bit, people will have to get used to beer again. He was apparently raised eating beer soup.

So he thought that was much better. This reminds me again of Evliet Chelyby, who when he goes to Persia, they try to make him drink wine and he's horrified at the idea of drinking. And all he wants is a nice cup of coffee. Or so he says. Exactly. But yeah, trade balances were a big, big thing. So people consuming coffee coming from other nations, other economies was a matter of great

concerned the Dutch and the French established in their colonies acclimatized coffee beans, as I was saying, which produced Arabica, but way outside the Arabian world. What we now call Arabica has nothing to do except in its origin with Yemen or with the Arabian world. So those coffees were a bit more bitter and the Ottoman started using sugar with the coffee. And this is now we're moving into the 18th century. And where did the Ottomans get their sugar from, from Cairo? The sugar itself? Yes, yes.

Because obviously Europe had this whole question which we're going to be dealing with in our next series about how the taste for sweetness in Europe led to the transatlantic slave trade. But in the Islamic world, you actually have sugar being grown in the Delta in Egypt at this period. And so they never acquired the slave labor that. that the Europeans put to use to make, to get their sweetness. About trade, Yemen, of course, quickly lost its primacy during the course of the 18th century. And similarly with Cairo, which had that role as intermediary. And the Ottomans preferred the coffee coming from the European colonies because it was cheaper.

Not it was better, but it was cheaper. Can I ask you this question? I mean, we'll sort of circle back to the UK in a second. But as far as the Ottomans were concerned, were they making money from coffee? Because I don't know whether you've read this. There's an very interesting article on The Economist that came out. They said, actually, coffee was the undoing of the Ottomans in the end. I mean, what is true here?

It made them or it broke them? I don't know. I'm reading. I mean, are we talking of it as a commodity? It was one of the most important sources of revenue and riches for Cairo throughout the 16th and 17th century, especially the 17th, into the early 18th. But it lost that role after a while. I sincerely doubt that it would break, though, the Ottoman economy.

I think what, I mean, this piece, I'm just trying to remember who wrote it, but it's about sort of the later part of the Ottoman Empire. And the fact that it became a place where people would ferment dissent and where differences would suddenly become enormously muscular, and where like-minded people would go. And so that idea of being a one people, the Ottomans are one people, that completely fragmented partly the author writes, and I will remember her name, it is a she,

but saying you can plot it with the politicisation that goes on within the coffee houses. But as we were saying, the politicisation was happening from the get-go. I studied Janicey urban revolts in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries as a series, and the coffee houses have a lot to do with them, a growing role, with all of the rebellions. Well, the politics, I'm fascinated because in America, it became unpatriotic to drink tea because of good old King George, and coffee became the drink of revolution as well.

And I think it's that sort of that coffee house feeling that, you know, this is where people can meet under the radar. They were called, I mean, the coffee house is in the UK. again, this is something I'm completely fascinated with because all of the political dissent that came from them. You've still got a magazine called The Spectator here where the gossipy column is called Coffee House. And that's because early journalism would send people out to these coffee houses to pick up little titbits of information which they could get. But also this idea that if you hated the establishment, it was a safe place to meet, to talk, but also to learn about stuff. They were called Penny Universities as well here, where people would go and they could educate themselves with not.

just printed matter, but talking to people who knew stuff. So, you know, the anarchy that came with the coffee house, I'm delighted by. William, I send you the advert from Pasca Roses. It's a wonderful advert. I love it. Because, I mean, I think you'll do it more justice. I'm enchanted by it. It says, the virtue of the coffee drink, and capital letters, coffee, the grain or berry called coffee groweth upon little trees, only in the deserts of Arabia in italics. It is brought from thence and drunk generally throughout. all the grand seigneur's dominions. Yes.

It is a simple innocent thing, composed into a drink. I mean, the end of it, though, it's all the things that it's meant to do. I mean, this is, you know, the earliest snake oil selling from Pasco-Rosio, who says it will be a cure for blindness. It's also a cure for kidney stones. They are not troubled with the stone, gout, dropsy or scurvy in Turkey where this is drunk. and the skin is much better as well. There we are, Jamal. It was a miracle cure-all for everything.

That's interesting what we had earlier. It also says it's better than any other drying drink for people in years. It's good for old people, drying drink. Drying, yeah. So it wasn't as bad for women because women have, in the Galenic medical tradition, women have a wet temperament. They can tolerate more coffee, which is a drying liquor. And this again is in this advert, or children that have any running humours.

Yes, I mean, they're talking about the humours. Luckily, we've moved on a little from Galen. Everyone drinks coffee. He keeps going. This is in the end. He says it's very good to prevent the miscarrying of childbearing women. So it's good for giving birth. And it's the most excellent remedy against spleen.

hypochondriac winds and the like. It's fantastic. It will prevent drowsiness and make one fit for business if one has occasion to watch. And if we are therefore not to drink or have it after supper, brilliant. So look, just finally, because we're running out of time, Jamar,

and it's been a delight talking to you. It's wonderful. Thank you, yes. Can I ask a really, I mean, we've been talking about such lofty things. I have a really stupid question. When was milk? When was milk at it? Frankly, I don't know.

But much later than anything I study, which is often, you know, I stop when you get to the early 19th century in terms of my primary research, archival research. So it must be very late. It may come from, again, European or some other practice. The tea with milk in England may have been a model. I don't know. Yeah, I think it's certainly, if you think how tea and coffee are drunk in Turkey today, it's still drunk basically without milk.

Yes. And even in Italy, it's considered slightly naft to have milk in your coffee after lunch. People will look at you oddly if you order a cappuccino in the afternoon. So England seems to be the source of this terrible pollution. Yes. So, Jamal, thank you so, so much. for that. You've been so generous with your scholarship and put it out in such an effortlessly amusing and fantastic way. It made us think twice about things we do every day without

giving any thought to it. It's goodbye from me, Anita Arnden. And goodbye from me, William Dalrymple.