Coffee

Do you settle down and read Bay with a mug of coffee?  If so, this article is for you as we will be looking into the history of coffee.  It all starts with a goat, that’s right a goat.

It is thought that coffee was discovered by a goatherd from Ethiopia. Coffee comes from a berry and can be found on the coffea a shrub or small tree.  The coffee bean is the seed found within the berry; it is this seed or bean that contains caffeine. The bitter taste is coffea’s natural defence to stop animals eating the brightly coloured berries. Once the bean has been separated from the berry, it needs to be roasted.

During the 16th century, travellers returning home from Turkey and the Middle East were talking about a black drink called coffa.  It was recorded as being “blacke as soote and tasting not much unlike it”.  Trade between the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company enabled coffee to come to Britain.

The first coffee house to be opened in England was in Oxford, at The Angel, opening in 1650 it is known today as The Grand Café.  London also has one of the earliest coffee houses which was opened in 1652, the location hidden away in St. Michael’s Alley. Today the premises are home to a trendy wine bar, The Jamaica Wine House.  Both premises claimed that Samuel Pepys was their customer – it must have been thirsty work writing those diaries!

Coffee was mostly drunk by men, and at coffeehouses rather than at home.  Doctors welcomed this as it was a substitute for drinking alcohol at taverns.  New businesses were established at coffeehouses, including the Stock Exchange and Lloyds’s of London.  However, married women weren’t happy; during 1674 a group of married women started a petition, The Women’s Petition Against Coffee, the basis of the petition was that men were wasting their time at coffeehouses!

During the 18th century there was a rapid increase in the number of coffeehouses, and by 1875 there were over 3,000 premises dotted around the country.

Of course, the most famous café in Swansea is The Kardomah (above), which opened on Castle Street in 1905.  It was here that the Kardomah Gang regularly hung out.  Sadly, the original Kardomah was destroyed during the 1941 Blitz, and today it is located in Portland Street. In 2018 Chris Moss of The Telegraph voted the Kardomah amongst his ’50 best cafes in the world’.

 Copyright - The Bay Magazine, October 2022