Count your blessings coffee lovers. Five hundred years ago, you’d be considered a stone cold criminal. Long before cigarettes, obnoxious cell phone users, and loud music with filthy lyrics, it was actually none other than coffee that was public enemy no. 1. Coffee was not only condemned, but outright banned in many countries before becoming the adored treat that it is today. And being caught with it would have landed you in hot water.
Coffee met its first opposition not far from where it was cultivated, in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Not unlike modern Western culture, coffeehouses were the it place to be in the 16th century. So much so, that Mosques eventually had fairly shoddy attendance, compared to coffeehouses. By the year 1511, the governor of Mecca had had enough. He ordered all Meccan coffeehouses to be closed and even paid off two notable doctors to endorse false propaganda about coffee’s health risks. Around the same time, a crusade to ban coffee in Islamic law was kicked off. The effort would continue for close to a century. Coffee received a short-lived justice when the Sultan of Cairo (an avid coffee drinker) decided that no such ban should be made without his approval. The ban was overturned, and the governor was sentenced to death in the year 1512 for embezzlement. Sadly, coffeehouses were once again closed by Sultan Murat IV of Cairo during the Ramadan of 1532. They remained closed until the very end of the century.
Coffee was met with an equal amount of delight and doubt when it reached Europe in the 17th century. The first person said to have brewed the coffee in England was Nathaniel Conopios, a Balliol College student from Crete. He was quickly expelled from the University for his “mischief”, but his brewing practices spread like wildfire. After its popularity had grown, a group of Christian clerics urged Pope Clement VIII to once again prohibit the bean, insisting that it was, of course, the work of the Devil. The Pope decided that he could not rightfully ban coffee without tasting it first. After tasting the controversial and delicious beverage, Pope Clement VIII determined that not only was it not the work of the Devil, but that it should be baptized as a Christian drink. King Charles II of England banned the big-bodied bean just before Christmas of 1675, out of fear that its effects of liveliness and alertness were certain to incite a revolt. The King got the revolt he was looking for when mass protests ensued in response to the ban. He reversed his decision on January 8th of 1676.
Over the centuries, coffee has been dogged out, expelled, and dragged through the mud. Yet it has proved time and time again that it is a hallmark of flavor, sociability, and intrigue, and deserves its place in society. We coffee drinkers are the descendants of the ancient creed of “give us our coffee and no one gets hurt.” Brothers and Sisters let us continue to carry the torch.
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Coffee Based Musings
