Matthew Nelson
History 120 (10:20am)
2/20/2012

Brewing a Renaissance

Coffeehouses became a huge part of social culture in Europe during the late 1600s through the mid-1700s. These coffeehouses were a place for any man to come and enjoy Europe’s new favorite drink, coffee, while discussing public affairs, religion, literature, sciences, and issues of the modern days. Not only did coffee become an alternate beverage to alcohol but it gave way to a new world where people could freely speak their minds and be considered equal in terms of expressing their views. On any given day you could find a wide variety of men gathered around a table in London’s coffeehouses. They would be calm and poised in their conversations as they shared both facts and opinions of what they had learned from their individual studies or professions. “Let noise of loud disputes be quite forborn . . .” All conversation had to be brisk, non-scandalous, innocent in context and free from blame. The overall intentions of coffeehouse conversations according to the poem, A “Sober and Wholesome Drink”, was to stay away from rowdy gossip and arguing but rather sticking to intellectual topics because people at that time began to crave learning.
As people became more literate in the times of the early 1800s coffeehouses became meeting places for business, discussion, proposals, and meetings. These houses exceeded in popularity compared to pubs. This was because pubs would usually lead to disputes and anger due to the alcohol which lead to drunkenness. Coffee was soothing, uplifting and was sober. Gathering around these drinks sparked creative thinking and intellectual ideals which was craved by the community. These venues also gave way to a new group of society which finally was able to begin interacting with social and state affairs.
Before a lot of the common citizens of England and Europe