Oh What A Time... - #112 Liquids (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

Liquids, ay?! Where would we be without them!? This week we’re discussing coffee, drinks in Ancient Rome and.. drum roll please… custard. YES, CUSTARD. Get ready for the best custard facts you’ll ever hear.And what did we do before industrial production of clothing? Nothing at all? Is this why the loincloth was such a hit in the past? Well, if you know, do let us know: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wandery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wandery Plus in the Wandery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello, welcome and thank you for downloading Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to ask how hard was life and how rubbish was life prior to the invention of clothes factories? Imagine having to make your own clothes from scratch every time. When part of that process probably entails killing something bigger than you as well. Yep, yeah, yeah. Or just like knitting all your clothes or sewing all your clothes. Oh yes. Or making your own clothes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pre-clothes factories. So I'm immediately imagining Animal Hide, but you're right, even the admin of just getting the raw materials and making something would be really annoying. I hadn't even thought about that. You're right. Every time. So I don't know, something happens, you tear your favourite jumper. Great, we'll make another one. Well, it's funny, isn't it, when they discover ancient humans up mountains and in bogs, often they've just got animal hide and a bell.

Yeah. Because they just can't be bothered. And also, even with the enormous range of clothing available on the high street and online, you can buy clothes from Australia now, should you wish. Even with all of that choice, I occasionally still look stupid and wear bad stuff. Yeah. Because of mistakes, aesthetic choices, fashion. I didn't want to say it.

Et cetera. If I was making my own clothes from scratch you'd never look good on your wedding day. I've got an even more stressful point on that, Ellis, which is as parents of young children who grow out of their clothes every three months, you're constantly having to knit or sew or darn whatever it would be, a new range of outfits every season basically. I love those pictures of little kids like in the East End in the sort of 1800s and they're all wearing, all the boys are wearing like suits like little men. Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen, one of my favourite genre of old video is like the 1900 cameraman in a busy East London street. Yes. And there's just urchins in full suits.

Like, yeah, what's going on here? Staring at the camera. That is my favourite genre. Yeah, I'm right with you. And if one of those crops up on my social media, I will always save it and watch it multiple times. I find it absolutely staggering. I think the obvious answer to your kids

growing up with clothes would be enforce an entirely poncho based look for your children because the poncho will see you through a few years. If you think about it, at most you need to make the neck hole a bit bigger as their head grows but it's gonna cover the body. Whereas if you're doing jumper, trousers, socks you're having to make those new every few months, is it worth the money? Also, you've worked hard. Like my Izzy loves to knit, right? She loves it. But knitting takes ages. So, Steph, my son, really loved cats two years ago. His cat jumper is almost

ready. By the time the jumper is ready, fashion has moved on. Fashion has moved on, his tastes have moved on. He doesn't want a cat face and a paw that comes out of the jumper with a mouse attached to a piece of string on the jumper that the cat is trying to catch. He's six, he's like, I'm not going to wear that, it'll make me look like a fucking loser. I would love that jumper more than anything in the world, incidentally. Izzy's been knitting since 2022.

The cat it's depicting is now dead. The cat's evolved since she started making that jumper. This is why people who work in knitwear really have to have their finger on the pulse of popular culture because they have to be very trend-based and see where things are going in two years. Yeah. More so than any other industry. Can I tell you something's going to blow your mind?

So my lovely sister-in-law and my lovely brother, they live out in the countryside. They live a very sort of... Terry and June. Yeah, it is that sort of life. So they have a sheep, they have a couple of small things in the holding and they have their children have a wonderful time in the wood and stuff like that. A few years ago, they built a loom and they made their children jumpers on the loom in their... out on their little sort of like dry stone shed outside. Two words, Amazon Prime.

Come on. It's so good. But your brother and sister-in-law are going to be fine after the AI apocalypse. When we're all running around looking for loops. I am so proud to be a Wondry Podcast. Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime. You get it on the day at the very latest tomorrow. It is good. Fuck the loom.

Amazon Prime is so amazing. We've now transitioned to a stage where, you're right, the next day delivery feels a little annoying. Oh my god. Oh, it's that sort of Prime. It's not today Prime. If it's a two day I'm, I'm like, sorry, what? You must have lost your tiny mind. What planet is this coming from? Yeah, like I buy books from my local bookshop,

because it's a really great bookshop and I really like the person who runs it. It might take three days for me to get a book. I sometimes want to say to him, listen, buy it on Prime and then charge another quid or whatever the mark of it. I don't care. But come on, let's keep things moving. Let's do it. I need to read about East Germany now. Well to close this issue, I think it's quite an interesting question. If you had to make an outfit for yourself now, what is the most realistic thing you could make and what are you using to make that outfit? Naked but for a tie.

Is that what you're going for? Long enough to cover your, the necessaries. I think I'd tattoo my necessaries to look like something else. What else? And then I got a tree branch. Twig and berries. arrow saying, eyes up here, pointing up to your head. I can imagine it now. I'm turning it, it's 1500, I'm turning it up for work at the local bog and people are like, you're right, something about you doesn't look right. Yeah, listen, I knitted both of the sleeves of this jumper onto the same side.

Okay, so yeah, all right, It's not, it's gone badly. I hadn't realised I'd done it till I put it on for the first time, but this is my jumper now, so I'll fucking deal with it. Okay. The most I've ever seen Josh Ridicam laugh was during the pandemic, he came to visit us on Christmas Day when you're only like, from a distance to sort of like just say hi sort of thing. You know, you weren't allowed to see each other, but from a distance you could sort of, it was like that weird Christmas when you couldn't, yeah, but anyway. My mother-in-law was living with us. My mother-in-law loves to knit. She knitted me a Christmas jumper. That's what she knitted me to get me over

the pandemic, to distract me from the fact I couldn't see my loved ones. I was getting a jumper knitted for me. On the doorstep, she makes me try it on in front of Josh. She's left every single pin in it and doesn't realize. And I am acupunctured within an inch of my life. Did you put it on a look like hell race? It was so painful. I can't, every part of my pot my torso is

getting punctured shock big bit of himself a mother-in-law not apologizing enough and the worst thing is once it's on it's got to come off again as well so that's going to be really painful I remember my mother and grandmother making me clothes when I was a kid and I would put the item of clothing on and my grandmother said would have pinned it and she might have forgotten two or three pins. There's a real fear when you put on clothing with pins in it because, A, you feel a pain and then you think there might be more of them. Where are they hiding?

Where are they? And if I move, I could get acupunctured again and I don't know where it's gonna happen. It's really horrible. Put it over your head and you look like that guy from Hellraiser. Yeah. Just covered. Yeah. So there you go. It's an interesting question. I've never, immediately I thought animal hides killing a bear but you're right the actual simple construction, the knitting of clothes. I'm so glad we don't have to go through that. God bless sweatshops. construction and knitting of clothes. I'm so glad we don't have to go through that. God bless sweatshops. You heard it here first. Welcome to Oh What A Time. This is going to be a fun episode, isn't it? We've got a fun subject today. It's the subject of liquids. There you go. It's all right.

Liquids from history. Liquids from history. And what liquids are we looking at today? I will be discussing coffee. I, of course, will be discussing the greatest liquid of all time, the history of custard. It's happening, people. I'm so excited for your section. And with me, we're going back to ancient Rome

to see what drinks there and liquids they were consuming back then. Fantastic. But before that, shall we do a little bit of correspondence? Yes! Oh yes please. Today's emailer is a man by the name of Matt Hollingsworth. Very, very. What's that term about the footballers from about 20 years ago? Yes. Very Barkleys. Very Barkley. It feels like a sort of central midfielder for Charlton in about 1996. Yeah, I love it. Defensive midfielder right centre. Now Matt Holliesworth has got in contact with a very nostalgic email actually.

This is really taking me back. I love this email. It is titled Britain's hottest format point, coffee table edition. Now Ellis, do you want to quickly remind our listeners, for people who might have joined the show recently, what the One Day Time Machine is and why coffee tables are of interest to that subject? The One Day Time Machine is a time machine

and you're allowed to go back to any period in history of your choosing, but only for a day, so you can just have a look around. So you can either turn up in, I don't know, 15th century Turkey as yourself, either as a person that would fit in or wearing your modern sort of space clothes, or I don't know why I suggested this, maybe as just a coffee table, like an inanimate object. Chris would absolutely use it, by the way, to go back to the Europa League final, the conference league final, where I was three

years ago. I'd like to stroked up to the summer 2016. So Ellis suggested he go back as a coffee table, is that right? Is that what it was? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he'd sort of like drink in whatever was happening around you as a coffee table. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're not going to get beaten up or anything. And you're not going to frighten anyone. You're not going to have any... You're just eavesdropping as a coffee table. Exactly.

You did also think at one point you'd be good to go back as a ghost and that you might want to make sure you had ghost toilet paper. Oh yeah, are you a ghost? Do you ghost defecate? Email us on hello at all our time. I find it hard to believe they do, although if they can eat it's going to go straight through them so I guess they might. They can't be eating though, I Can I imagine ghosts feeling peckish? I don't think so. There's a scene in Harry Potter where they go to like a party for one of the ghosts and they've left out a buffet and everything's gone rotten and horrible because they can't eat it. So J.K. Rowling seems to think they don't.

Matt Hollingsworth says, good evening gents. It's long overdue and I'm not sure if Ellis's sponsorship deal with Habitat has expired yet. But someone needs to address the best one day time machine visits as a coffee table. Now, having done a bit of research, it's worth saying this is a two pronged email with both historical fact and a fun listener take. He's really nailed it. Having done a bit of research, the first modern coffee table, as we understand it today, low, wide, and placed in front of a sofa, was likely developed in the late 19th century Britain. Around 1860s to 1880s, the term coffee table itself seemed to come into common use in the early 20th century. Now, there's some debate over who first invented it, but F. Stuart

Foot, that's a great name for someone who does this, founder of the Imperial Furniture Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is often credited with popularising the coffee table in the 1920s. So there's the first point. Well if you've invented the coffee table and your surname is Foote, sure do you end up calling it the Foote table or something? Well the Foote stall was already done I guess, that was already taken wasn't it, the Foote stall, so maybe the footstool. So maybe that's, that's the issue.

No, not. Foot table. That makes sense. Not everybody drinks coffee. You think he'd try and get his name in there somewhere. Yeah. The coffee table sort of to me, it fits with a sofa and in front of the telly. That's where it makes sense to me.

Yeah. Without the context of the telly and the sofa, it's just a very, it's a weirdly low table to have, isn't it? Yes. And a table, to be honest, it's impossible really for anything other than storing books. Yeah, exactly, yeah. If you do your homework on it, you've got to sit cross-legged. If you want people to know you've got a subscription to the National Geographic, then it's perfect. You put a few out, people know that you like to learn. Yeah, I'd love to be the person who fans his magazines on a coffee table. Exactly.

How many of those are shifting in the 1860s? Because you're just getting a weirdly low table you don't really need at that point. Yeah, I don't know. F Stewart Foote came up with it. However, that is not the crux of this email. The crux of this email is what Matt Hollingsworth would do if he were a coffee table. It's such a Barclays name.

It is. Every time you say it, I am at the Valley and Charlton. Chris Powell's charging down the left wing. Charlton, Charlton are playing Bolt and Wonders. And I can't believe these two teams in the Premier League Herman Haridison in his pump. Yeah a Few years later. He's Employed in his interim manager for Portsmouth after the actual managers sucked with four games to go And he managed to keep them up but doesn't keep doesn't get the actual job

Yeah, now Matt says obviously being a coffee table enables you to be a fly on the wall in many interesting scenarios should use a one day time machine without some of the risks of violence present in other listeners' trips. I will admit that scalds from hot liquids are more of a risk along with property fires being less easily escaped with four static legs. Static legs is a good point good good point. So let's say you go back to the fire in London Maybe maybe don't be a coffee. Oh my god. Just burning to death Why was a coffee table, this is my choice nice marble coffee table, you're pretty much invincible You're still very very hot. Aren't you? Have you ever in your life seen a marble coffee table?

Chris? Well you grew up in Essex, so probably. I've seen many a faux marble coffee table. Does that count? Now, here is what Matt would like to do. Many scenarios come to mind, depending on how serious you want to be. The coffee table to witness the Beatles coming up with some of their best hits. That's a good idea. Thoughts on that? It was Ellis's idea. That's lovely. A coffee table privy to the Cray twins most notorious meetings. Another good idea. Bit weird.

Of all the criminal enterprises you want to listen in on in the history of the world, you're picking the Crays. Although great accents. of the world. You're picking the craze. Although great accents. Yeah. Also as an object where you can't do anything about it. So you hear the information and go, I should probably have the police now. I can't, I'm a coffee table. That's annoying. However, the one that appeals to Matt most as a nerdy historian is being present at the Yalta Conference in 1945. The three great allied leaders discussing huge geopolitical issues as World War Two comes to a close will be fascinating. Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin are fascinating characters that I would get to hold the drinks of and

maybe a bowl of Russian sweets. There you go. So that's what he wants to go back to the Yalta Conference and listen to those weighty chats. Basically set up the Eastern Bloc. Yes, and East Germany, your favourite. My favourite. Oh. The Yalta Conference, I think there's a famous picture of them all sat outside. And I think there's a nice little wicker in my mind's eye.

There's a little wicker table knocking about somewhere. I'm looking at the picture. I cannot see any coffee table. Well, don't I have to use our imagination? Yes. There's a, there's the famous picture of the three of them, isn't there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll set that aside. But they're just sitting on a sort of chaise lawn.

School chairs, I would describe. Oh, they are school chairs, actually. Yeah, they're separate chairs. And there's lots of rugs around. But to be honest, this is the photo call, isn't it? So there is other pictures of them round tables. Not necessarily a coffee table. Roosevelt's got a cloak on. Yes. And Churchill's coat a cloak on. Yes. And Churchill's court is too big for him. But I still think you could get away with being a coffee table if there isn't normally

a coffee table there. Because it would require them all to be particularly familiar with the room and whether there should be a coffee table in it for you to be rummable. Yeah. I can't imagine Stalin going in and going, wait a second, before we get started, what is that doing here? Is this a town travelling coffee table? Exactly. Who's listening to us divide up Berlin to four different zones?

Am I thinking what you're all thinking? Is that a time travelling coffee table? Exactly. So I think you get away with it. So there you go. Thank you very much for that email. That's some lovely thoughts in there. Nice to know about the history of the

coffee table from Matt Hollingsworth. You know what? Stalin at the end, certainly at the end of his life, famously paranoid. Can you imagine if he turned up at the altar conference going, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That looks to me like a time-travelling coffee table. Okay? Get rid of it. Burn it. Now. If only it was marble, it wouldn't feel it. But it would, so it would. Can I extend this historical thought for the listeners? Yes, please do. Any piece of furniture from history, you have to be inanimate. It can be a wardrobe, a cupboard, a dresser, you name it. Which piece of furniture in history would you like to be

for a day? It doesn't have to be a coffee table. Oh, so it could be a particular historical piece of furniture as history would you like to be for a day? It doesn't have to be a coffee table. Oh, so like, it could be a particular historical piece of furniture as well. So it could be a throne for a certain king or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very good question. Could be a throne. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. What would you be?

That's a very good question. I'll mull on that myself. There will be some really crazy, regal, emperor sort of stuff weren't there, as examples of decadence that I'm looking forward for our listener input on this. My initial thought was to be one of the sort of slat seats on the lifeboats of the Titanic. So you get to watch the Titanic, but also survive the Titanic. Why would you want to watch the Titanic? That is just horrific.

I'd also make a point of trying to steer myself towards people. So I'd be doing some good. So you know, it's not entirely morbid. I'm also trying to save lives. To be honest, that's what I'm always trying to do. There's a door at Westminster Ambient that is about a thousand years old. The oldest door in Britain. And that door has seen some stuff.

I think I might have been, it was, I don't think it was York Minster, but it was something like York Minster. And I was walking up a turret and there was graffiti from the 1700s carved in. And you're like, bloody hell, this is, this is incredible what this staircase will have seen. But that door at Westminster Abbey is a good example. Absolutely. Well, email in. There are many ways to contact this wonderful, wonderful show.

Modern, old school. As you can't. You can't send us a letter, sorry. You can't send us a letter. We don't accept letters. So it's all modern. It's all modern. And here's how.

Alright, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at earlwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh What A Time, now clear off. Just to throw out there, what about like a flag at a famous battle, maybe like the Battle of Hastings, Harold Godwinson's flag at the Battle of Hastings. Yeah. So you get, you're up in the air, a fantastic view of the slaughter, something Tom would

obviously enjoy given his preference for watching. Mass. Death. Oddball Tom Crane. Just to be clear, I wanted to reiterate, I would be trying to nudge the vessel towards people in distress. Tom would love to be a door in one of the concentration camps during the Boar War. He loves it.

Tom would love to be an axe during the wrath of Henry VIII. Oh dear. Well do let us know. Hello at owattertime.com. And one other thing before we go into the history. If you did want to support the show by coming at Ow What A Time full-timer for 4.99 a month, you get ad-free shows, you get access to all our bonus episodes,

you'll get first dibs on live shows that we will be doing this year. You get just so much there. Also, it means an awful lot to the show and it really helps support it. A lot of work goes into this, not just from us, also from our wonderful historian, Darryl Leeworthy, Dr. Darryl Leeworthy that is, our fantastic editor, Jodie. So lots of people put a lot of effort into this and it's a nice way of supporting the

show if you can, if not, all good. Completely understand. But the option is there. It's £4.99 a month and you can go to owotatime.com to do that if you so choose. Right, history, yeah? Yeah. Great. Big time. Today I'll be telling you all about what the Romans were drinking back in ancient

Rome. And I'm going to be talking to you a little about the history of custard. Not the military leader. The drink, the best drink. Well it was General Custer. I thought it was General Custard for a long time, but it was Custer. Oh was it? It wasn't Custard's last stand. That would be, I don't know, the apple crumble.

What a mistake. That would be humiliating if this was a history pod for me to make, that's a mistake, but luckily it's not a history pod. Right, I'm going to talk about coffee now. The history of coffee, it can almost be summed up by the etymology of the English word, which entered from the Dutch koffie in the 1580s. I hope you like my Dutch accent. I have just watched a long interview with Ruud Hullet. In preparation for saying that one word? Yeah, go for it.

It's dedication. Yeah, which entered Dutch. It's dedication. Yeah, yeah. Which entered Dutch alongside other European variants, such as the Italian cafe, which came from the Venetian cafe, which has been dated to about 1570, or the French cafe. These were borrowed from Ottoman, from the Ottoman Turkish word, cafe. And the Ottoman Empire dominated the coffee trade to renaissance Europe. Okay now coffee itself was first grown in Ethiopia. I personally love Ethiopian coffee because it tends to be very fruity. That's interesting. So can you tell where coffee has come from from drinking it? Are you that

level of well within some kind of vague degree I mean? No not always but there are sort of generally I would say that the African coffees tend to be slightly fruitier and lighter than the South American ones. But that's just a very, very, very, very, very general rule of thumb and it all depends on the roast. And that's only if you're talking single origin. And I am absolutely a single origin guy.

Yeah, but you couldn't pinpoint it to the exact farm it's come from. No, no, I couldn't say, oh, this is Burundi. Because it depends on sort of when it was grown and what the weather was like when it was grown and what altitude and all that kind of stuff. Now it was later exported to Yemen, notably through the port of Mokka, and that is where the name for a Mokka coffee comes from. Is it? Yeah, yeah. And eventually from there into the Arabic speaking world, what is known as Kava and the Ottoman Empire.

Now that Arabic word has got different points of origin and some suggest that it was a liquid that satisfied the appetite, sort of, you know, quashed people's appetites. Others, it just merely meant like dark stuff. And others, like, I think it sort of came from the word for brew, because the word first

meant wine. Now the coffee house or the coffee tavern was a real staple of mid and eastern culture before it was everything in Europe and the earliest coffee houses or coffee taverns were established in Cairo, Damascus and Mecca in the 15th century. I think there's one earlier than that. The cafe in Star Wars. Is Star Wars set in the past? Isn't it millions of years ago? Is it not? In a galaxy far, far away? I could be making that up. I did not know. I always assumed it was futuristic. Is it millions of years ago in a galaxy? Well, because of the lasers.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I always assumed sort of the future, but I'm by no means a Star Wars expert. And my favourite character Wibble Wobble was discussed the other week. The opening line of the Star Wars films is, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Oh, okay. All right then. All right, okay. How have I missed that?

Have I always turned up slightly later? No, I've never seen it. Let's ignore what I said. The first Coffee House was in the Galaxy Far Far Away. And you'll recognise it from the Star Wars films. Now, on Earth though, the first ever were established in Cairo and Damascus and Mecca in the 15th century. So they spread from the Ottoman Empire, including to Aleppo, to Istanbul, and to Beirut, and

then on to Europe. So the first coffee house in Europe was this sort of being opened in Belgrade in 1522. Wow. Now coffee then spread to Malta and onto Venice, where a coffee house was opened in 1645. From there, it was a rapid expansion through to the rest of the continent. Now London's first coffee house opened in 1652,

and I have been to the site of it. Wow. So it was Pasqua Rose's coffee house, and it was established in St. Michael's Alley Cornhill, which is in the sort of Moorgatey kind of area of London, which is a really beautiful part of London, actually, that people tend not to go to, because it's not particularly touristy, but it's a very, very old part of London,

sort of near Bank, that kind of area. So it's a really interesting place to walk around. And then it was soon followed by the Rainbow Coffee House in Fleet Street in 1657. Amazing. And the Queens Lane Coffee House in Oxford, which is still going, opened in 1654. Now, I did a coffee tour of London a couple of months ago.

Did that become so increasingly sort of frenetic and anxiety inducing as you went into it? The guide made us a coffee to a 1650s recipe. Really? And it was incredibly strong. Right. He didn't filter it because they didn't use to filter it. And it had mustard seed in it and black pepper and egg-crushed eggshell. What was it like? It was absolutely disgusting. It is the most horrible drink I've ever had in my life. It is worse than any bad alcohol drink. It's worse than, you know, sort of,

if you don't like tequila or any sort of straight shot. It was, it was vile. Will Barron Wow. Will Barron And it was so popular, because obviously there was a sort of temperance movement at the time and because of the puritans, people like, this is great, we can drink this, it's because of the caffeine, it will keep us alert, we can talk about ideas, we can disseminate ideas, we won't be drunk. And I thought, you know, it's just a drink. It can't be that bad.

I took a big slug of, and Izzy had a bottle of water. And my reaction was so over the top, it's like, give me water now, water now, water now! Spat it out into a hedge. It was hot. The hedge then spat it out as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there a decaf coffee tour of London?

Cause I would go on that, cause I'm only a decaf or drinker. I wonder if I could make you a decaf coffee with bits of eggshell mustard and black pepper in it. If you do it, I'll drink it. I'll give it a go. I'll make you one now. Made up with stuff I find in the garden. It'll taste just as good. Anyway, coffee houses flourished in parks that weren't mixed up with alcohol.

So this was the year of Oliver Cromwell, of course, but also they allowed, as I said, for exchanges of ideas and news. So those in Oxford were the first coffee house opened at the Angel Inn in 1650. They were regarded as penny universities. Oh wow. And they were newsrunners. This happened in London as well, chasing between them all, sharing the latest gossip and news. So you'd be sitting in your local coffee shop and some person would come in and say, have you heard the news? And they would just talk to you about, you know, whichever war Britain was fighting at the time. They'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've, you know. Wow. Yeah, we've, we won the latest battle. It was

a couple of weeks ago. I've just heard about it. So that's how they were disseminating news. Now innkeepers and beer retailers eventually got fed up with the competition. So then the monarchy was restored in 1660 and that offered a chance for booze to battle back. So on the 29th of December 1675, Charles II even tried to suppress coffee houses and coffee rooms and the idle and disaffected persons who spent hours in them. which is an amazing way of describing people who go to coffee shops, the idle and disaffected. Yeah. And he issued a proclamation for that effect, but he was soon convinced there was Cindy and it was abandoned a few days before it came into operation on the 10th of January

1676. So coffee was basically too popular to ban, so there was an active pamphlet culture. This carried on until the 20th century pamphlet culture. Yeah. Do you know what? I miss pamphlet culture. This carried on until the 20th century pamphlet culture. Yeah. Do you know what? I miss pamphlet culture. But like if you were certainly in the early 20th century, when I was reading sort of the history of the left and some history trade unions in the early 20th century,

probably until much later, if you had a political idea you wanted to disseminate, you would write up a pamphlet and people would buy it. Yeah. It's quite interesting. In my independent bookshop, there's an independent bookshop near my house, here in Clapton, they sell sort of small pamphlet-y little things, which have like political things that local people might have written or, yeah exactly, self-published,

stuff like that. At the till they have a lot, so you can still find them. I'm sounding like Ricky Gervais, he puts his feet up in the office, but yeah. You can still get them. Well, there was an active pamphlet culture to discuss the merits and the demerits of coffee shops. There were plays which took coffee houses to their settings. There was suggestions, you know, that coffee was amazing on one hand

because it didn't make you drunk, but on the other it was terrible because it made you impotent and dry. People are like, listen, if they have coffee these coffee nerds are fucking dull. Well maybe if you're drinking coffee with black pepper and eggshell in it, you're going to leave a mark. Sex was the last thing on my mind after I sipped on 16th century coffee. Even Peeps was a regular, sometimes spending so long in coffee houses that he was almost sick from the caffeine intake from the eggshell and the mustard and the black pepper. He often

went to a coffee house in Covent Garden, there were lots there. Very long intent diary entries I imagine from Peeps after 15 pages. The last bit written on the toilet. Which had a reputation for his wide mix of patrons from courtiers all the way to sex workers but others were kinds of places where books and pamphlets were bought and sold with adverts in newspapers that affect and so became, they became these vital centres of ideas. And that brings us to the courts, right, so government spies and informers were often regulars at coffee shops too.

So they were seeking out those who might give themselves up by speaking sort of seditiously in what they imagined to be a safe environment. So then again, certain London coffee houses, such as the Rainbow Coffee House, which I mentioned earlier, they were often meeting places for refugees and those fleeing political or religious persecution. So Voltaire, the great Voltaire was a regular

at the Rainbow Coffee House when he was in exile in London in the mid-20s. That's so cool. Wow. It's so cool, isn't it? So during the 18th century, coffee houses began to decline in popularity with tea, asserting itself as a drink.

This is something I often find quite interesting because coffee was regarded as a foreign drink when I was younger and tea was the sort of Welsh drink or the British drink. But we were drinking coffee in the UK first, certainly in London and Oxford and places like that. Isn't that funny though, because tea feels like the national drink.

Yeah, there are these sort of news stories you see every now and then where like, I think coffee outsold tea for the first time about five years ago or something. And people are like, oh God, you know, our Gen Z drinking tea. Gen Z laughing at millennials drinking tea. Oh God. And they're laughing at millennials for taking selfies in the wrong way and drinking tea. That's a sort of new story I read a lot. Now it followed obviously because of Britain's empire that was largely rooted in tea growing areas, mainly India, rather than those where coffee beans were in very

ready supply. And also there was a prejudice arose given the association with revolutionary behavior on the continent and in the United States. So what had all the fuss been about, now it's hard to tell, now 17th century coffee was, as a Turkish description once had it, black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love. So some people said that it looked like a syrup of soot and it tasted like the essence of old shoes. I wouldn't have believed this. I don't know when we started drinking it with milk,

but until I drank a cup of 16th century coffee, I thought it can't have been that bad. It was absolutely horrendous. Others thought it smelled like old crust and leather and it tasted of shit and puddle water. And yes, I would agree. Now, but that decline in coffee drinking that was apparent in Britain by the 19th century

did allow for major interventions. You had the arrival of the Italians as well as the Greeks and the Maltese, brought within their coffee culture, new culture, and that found a ready home in the sort of emerging industrial community. So South Wales, for instance, and in central Scotland, you had lots of Italian coffee shops.

Hey, try our coffee that's not made out of eggshells. And give it a go. Bit of milk and sugar is actually really nice. So they weren't like sort of traditional tea rooms, but they were places where you could buy pastries and often fish and chips and ice creams. So certainly in the South Wales Valleys in the old mining areas,

Italian coffee shops were hugely popular. They're still there, a lot of them. Yeah. And it just shows that coffee is a global beverage. It's the world's favourite drug. That's the other thing, because caffeine is a drug. Yeah. And I just think with coffee, it's so interesting

because we should do an episode on trade and how trade has affected global culture, really. But it's been traded for centuries, coffee. Yeah, absolutely. So it's a really interesting drink to study. I'm amazed it was that long ago that the coffee shops or whatever they were first called could be found in Britain. I find that staggering to me that it was that long ago. Yeah, I thought it was a 20th century thing until quite recently.

I would have assumed it was. Do you think back then you were going in ordering your coffee and they'd say, what's thou's name? And you'd go, Edgar. They'd take ages to do your coffee because they do one of those ornate first letters at the beginning of your name that they do in like historical books. Is thou on the loyalty scheme? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I give thou a stamp? Loan-ty scheme? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I give thou a stamp? Piercing your loyalty card with a dagger.

Four problems. And also, you tell them your name's Edgar. Coffee for Edward? Edward! Is that Edward? Edmund! Edgar? No, Stephanie and Edgar, mate.

That's not how you spell Edgar. Of course Starbucks would have liked it back then, because no need to pay taxes. Anyone? I mean people were paying taxes. They were but not in that sort of... But it's good stuff. Don't drill down too far into it.

It was more of a rhythm joke to be honest. Yeah yeah and I love them because I'm good at them. Yeah exactly. Ones that don't make any sense if you interrogate them. You'd say that at a comedy club, everyone laughs. Then in the Uber on the way home, they turn to their partner and go, wait a second. That was shit. I hate him. This is the third time we've seen Ellis. This is the third time he's pulled the wool over his eyes with another crap rhythm joke that sounds like a joke, but it isn't actually a joke when you listen to it.

Do you know, talking about coffee drinks with black pepper and eggshells in it, do you know what modern drink sounds like a drink from 500 years ago? Pumpkin spice latte. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could easily imagine getting that in 1500 in the rainbow cafe. Oh, definitely, yeah. It doesn't sound like a modern invention. No, absolutely not. It doesn't sound like it modern invention. It doesn't sound like it would work.

A long black sounds like something from about 500 years ago. I'll have ye long black please. I'd actually in answer to you say that pumpkin spice latte having tried it doesn't work. pumpkin spice latte having tried it doesn't work. It's too sweet, it is too much and it needs to stop. That's the end of part one, if you want part two right now you can't possibly wait, you can become an Oh What A Time full timer where you get two bonus episodes every month including lots of bonus episodes on books to do with East Germany because Elle loves the starzy. Oh well no I find them fascinating I'm not like Tom, I don't love

them I just find them fascinating. Plus we do bonus episodes where we cover even more of your correspondence so if you wanted to get stuck into all that bonus content and why wouldn't you? If the sun's coming out it's May now if, if the summer is here, enjoy yourself! You can become an Oh What A Time full-timer by going to owhatatime.com and sign up via Wondry Plus or another slice. Also as an extra bonus if you run into Ellis and you are a subscriber he will personally make you a coffee out of eggshells, hoot straps, and... In my house, regardless of where we are. Exactly, yeah. Sparrow eyes or whatever.

He'll make it for you there. Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow for part two. Bye. Bye. Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts and you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. And before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.