
The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse - gruseom
http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/08/07/the-lost-world-of-the-london-coffeehouse
======
dba7dba
Most interesting paragraph in the excellent article

>>Remember — until the mid-seventeenth century, most people in England were
either slightly — or very — drunk all of the time. Drink London’s fetid river
water at your own peril; most people wisely favoured watered-down ale or beer
(“small beer”). The arrival of coffee, then, triggered a dawn of sobriety that
laid the foundations for truly spectacular economic growth in the decades that
followed as people thought clearly for the first time. The stock exchange,
insurance industry, and auctioneering: all burst into life in 17th-century
coffeehouses — in Jonathan’s, Lloyd’s, and Garraway’s — spawning the credit,
security, and markets that facilitated the dramatic expansion of Britain’s
network of global trade in Asia, Africa and America.

~~~
nate_meurer
In particular, the assertions about the causes and economic effects of that
dawn of sobriety are extremely bold in the absence of any formal study.
Plausible maybe, but the article doesn't defend them with data (what may
exist).

And this may be a stretch, but I do wonder if the popularity (and necessity)
of coffeshop discussion was due in part to the crippling British copyright
system depriving people of access to books, which started in the beginning of
the 18th century:

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-
copyright-l...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-
law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html)

EDIT: And before the copyright system, the crippling monopoly over publishing
enjoyed by the Stationers Company, which took hold in the early 15th century.
My point being that Britain had long endured a stifling of written discourse,
possibly encouraging verbal discourse in its stead.

~~~
dba7dba
I don't know if a real study needs to be done to find out a population can be
more creative/productive when they go from slightly (or very) drunk to being
hyper caffeinated.

~~~
nate_meurer
The effect of alcohol consumption in GDP is not a trivial thing to study.
AFAIK, research has shown only slight affects on GDP. Take for example this
study on "The societal cost of alcohol consumption" in Sweden, which showed
only around 1% change in GDP:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18043953](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18043953)

I rather suspect that correlating caffeine to GDP would be even more
difficult. Either way, the article doesn't even try to support these
assertions factually. Which is OK -- it's a well-written article on an
interesting subject. It's just good to keep in mind that some of the material
is highly speculative.

~~~
cgh
Not just GDP but also nation-altering events such as warfare. I recommend "A
Distant Mirror" by Barbara Tuchman if you haven't already read it, as it's a
wonderful book (medieval history, but it still applies here).

Tuchman mentions our modern bewilderment at the insanely rash and reactionary
decisions that were often taken by nobility in those times - declarations of
war, terrible combat strategy and so forth, and which affected so many lives
(mostly those of the poor). She goes on to speculate that these decisions make
sense in the context of near-permanent drunkenness.

~~~
pattisapu
And [IIRC she also notes that] many of them were hotheaded teenagers / twenty-
somethings. With the life expectancy of those days one had to grow up fast.
And yet many did not.

------
tptacek
_[Propagandist] apologias and wondrous claims of travel-writers aside, more
compelling evidence suggests that far from co-existing in perfect harmony on
the fireside bench, people in coffeehouses sat in relentless judgement of one
another._

So, the Hacker News of its day. Quid novi? A set of stupid, formal, ancient
prigs, horrid periwig bores, every way unfit to herd with such bloods as us.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Reading about Newton (who lived around that same time), he seems like a
prototypical science geek, same as many geeks today. Robert Hooke too.

It seems like this particular type of individual is usually involved in
creative work that pushes boundaries. But this is no surprise for anyone
hanging around tech powerhouses like the Silicon Valley.

~~~
dpeck
Newton has been romanticized a bit by the math/science community.

The man was amazing, but thinking of him in our context of modern
science/geekery is misleading.

~~~
arethuza
That's true - modern scientists or geeks probably wouldn't stick a needle down
the side of their eye to see what happened to their vision:

[http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/Footprints_of_the_Lion/...](http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/Footprints_of_the_Lion/private_scholar.html)

~~~
enraged_camel
That... that makes me feel...

 _shudder_

~~~
Florin_Andrei
How about Robert Hooke drinking mercury. You know, for science.

[http://www.strangescience.net/hooke.htm](http://www.strangescience.net/hooke.htm)

> _It may have been in response to the constant pressure from the society (and
> himself) that the experimentalist Hooke performed plenty of experiments on
> his own body. Many of his adventures in self-experimentation were dangerous;
> almost all of them were pretty disgusting. At various times, he medicated
> himself with botanical purgatives, botanical emetics, mercury, steel
> filings, tobacco, absinthe, and mineral water so foul that he found ammonium
> chloride preferable to it. Hooke obsessed over getting a good night 's sleep
> and clearing out his lethargic digestive system. He often found his home
> remedies violently effective. He authored a recipe for turning pee into
> phosphorus salts, including an intermediate step of letting the effluvia sit
> "till it putrify and breed Worms."_

------
shashwatak
I was immediately reminded of _The Baroque Cycle_ by Neal Stephenson. arethuza
also mentions this series elsewhere in this comment section. A few of scenes
from the books take place in London Coffeehouses, which are described much
like the linked article.

Read these books! It's a bit of a time investment, but IMO it's better than
_Game of Thrones_!

Neal Stephenson's attention to historical detail is extraordinary.

~~~
joseph_cooney
I thought exactly the same thing. Those books are very educational, as well as
entertaining. The main/only problem is it is sometimes hard to know where the
fantasy starts and the facts stop. I suspect the non-titular/non-noble
characters (Shaftoes, the slave galley crew that become Jack's boon
companions). Plus there is the whole island of Qwghlm. Also fortunately it has
its own Wiki
[http://baroquecycle.wikia.com/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle_Wiki](http://baroquecycle.wikia.com/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle_Wiki).

------
gruseom
Another fascinating detail is how the king tried to shut them down because of
the political impact they were having. A "war on drugs" that never got off the
ground!

------
gyepi
The historical context actually makes this story more interesting. Prior to
the 18th century, sugar was available in Europe, but was quite expensive.
Certainly too expensive to be used in coffee. However, by the early 18th
century, the New World colonies of the West Indies, both British and French,
were producing sugar relatively cheaply. At one point, sugar was a _huge_
European commodity and the demand for it actually drove quite a bit of the
slave trade to provide the labor that made it possible. Similarly, coffee had
previously been available, but had not spread all over Europe. However, the
British and Dutch East India companies were able to acquire larger quantities
of coffee cheaper (likely through slavery, at least in Indonesia) than the
product available through the old overland "Spice Route" from Arabia through
Egypt to Venice. ransportation and handling costs would have been exhorbitant!
Interesting point: South Africa was established to help with the Dutch
transport to/from Indonesia and India in the course of the trade.

~~~
nkvl
Not to take anything away from the British love of sugar (or coffee), but
coffee+sugar(+milk) is a Viennese invention. The coffee house as well.

------
archangel_one
Lost world? Not so. Look a little harder. Try visiting the Department of
Coffee and Social Affairs, Fernandez and Wells, Speakeasy, or one of many
other boutique coffee shops serving excellent coffee. Okay, they're
outnumbered by Starbucks, Nero and Costa, but that doesn't mean they're not
there.

There is even an app for this, in case you're out and need to know which is
the nearest to you:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lbc.app.com](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lbc.app.com)

~~~
chippy
Modern day coffee shops are not really the same though.

Apparently there was a parallel to the whole "people sitting on their laptops"
issue way back in those days. Originally, there were long benches and people
would be forced to sit together and drink and chat, but there was a pressure
for the more snobby patrons to sit alone or apart and later individual tables
were added.

~~~
michaelochurch
The issue isn't the coffee shops. It's people. After college, it becomes
socially unacceptable to initiate conversation with a person you don't know.
People are not only stratified vertically by socioeconomic status, but
horizontally by industry- and subculture-specific senses of superiority
(academics vs. "techies" vs. bankers).

A coffee house would have to work at it to recreate the old dynamic: hold
board game tournaments, have common viewing of intelligent television (when
it's on, which is rarely). But that would conflict with the business goal
(except in college towns) of getting people in and out reasonably quickly so
you can afford rent on the space. The truth is that most people don't _want_
to meet new people. They want to work on their laptops and talk to people they
already know.

~~~
nostrademons
"After college, it becomes socially unacceptable to initiate conversation with
a person you don't know."

I don't think this is actually true. My girlfriend will chat up basically
anyone she meets - she'll talk to the guy making her burrito in Spanish, crack
jokes with the checkout cashier, introduce my slam-poet friend to her CFO's
teenage daughter who wants to get involved in the arts scene, cold-call alumni
from her school asking for career advice, respond to cold-calls from people
asking for career advice, and randomly strike up a conversation with a
stranger on a street corner. Occasionally it leads to some awkwardness, like
on Halloween when she asked the guy behind us if he was Sheldon Cooper for
Halloween (he wasn't wearing a costume). But most people are very glad to be
treated like a human being and talked to directly.

I think that what happens is there's a selection effect at work. People don't
try to maintain a conversation with other people who don't want to be talked
to - _that 's_ rude. And so if you believe that most people don't want to be
talked to, you'll give off "I don't intend to talk" signals, which will ensure
that most people don't try to talk to you.

~~~
jvagner
My last girlfriend was like that. Two things: 1) she was very attractive; 2)
she was outrageously gregarious.

I can accomplish a fractional amount of her socialization if I happen to be
feeling supremely gregarious (not very often), but for the more averagely
social human being, it can be challenging to initiate conversation with people
you don't know. I do think the built environments of the adult, professional
world are less conducive for this.

On this point though, I always marvel at the park picnic scene: often you can
find very large groups of ethnic or seemingly blue collar people holding court
at the picnic tables at parks. My own personal demographic isn't as frequently
represented in that scene. Go ahead, guess.

------
yurylifshits
It's coming back with Ziferblat London (pay per minute free space). Great
atmosphere and community center.

[https://www.facebook.com/ZiferblatLondon](https://www.facebook.com/ZiferblatLondon)

[http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jan/08/pay-per-
minute...](http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jan/08/pay-per-minute-cafe-
ziferblat-london-russia)

~~~
mrottenkolber
Have to say I like the idea a lot. It seems kind of inexpensive too. Even a
little too inexpensive to be lucrative? From what I read 6p/min, they
shouldn't serve beer. ;)

~~~
padolsey
3p a minute is the minimum suggested donation. £1.80 an hour is very
reasonable. Ziferblat has found great success with this model in Russia.
Here's hoping it sticks in the West.

------
dmoo
It's importance is also noted in this short talk on innovation by Steven
Johnson

[http://youtu.be/NugRZGDbPFU](http://youtu.be/NugRZGDbPFU)

~~~
jamesbritt
I highly recommend his book, _The Invention of Air_

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Invention-Air-Steven-
Johnson/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Invention-Air-Steven-
Johnson/dp/B0045EPCPA)

------
thebear
It has always surprised me how Silicon Valley works as well as it does in the
almost complete absence of independent coffeehouses.

~~~
jvagner
SF has independent coffeehouses. But every tech company has free coffee.

------
kimonos
Interesting! Thanks for sharing!

