a little big history of
Coffee
In 1961, Frank Loesser's musical, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, was first performed live on Broadway featuring the song "Coffee Break" (above) in which actors and actresses go berserk when the coffee machine runs out. Fifty years later, the musical was revived on Broadway with leads Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette. Audience members fifty years apart could relate to the same dramatic desperation that the American worker might have felt without his or her daily caffeine quota being met. While "timeless" may not be the correct word to use for a drink that has only been around a minuscule fraction of big history, coffee certainly has crossed temporal boundaries and remained an important cultural beverage throughout the centuries. As coffee transmuted from a luxury commodity into a more accessible drink for both the lower classes and the elites, coffee became more well-known, popular, depended on, and traded. Today, coffee ranks as the number two most valuable traded commodity after petroleum and has become heavily franchised (Starbucks, anyone?) (Pendergrast). Scientific studies show up left and right, praising the health benefits of coffee or demonizing the caffeine that will lead to early death. Fair Trade and organic coffee are all the buzz. These days, it's nearly impossible to go a day on a college campus without spotting several if not hundreds of students and professors carrying around their cardboard cups filled with the morning's brew. Yet evidence reveals that coffee, originating in Ethiopia, did not become a commonly traded commodity until groups in Yemen began to make and sell the drink to religious people who used the caffeine boost to stay up all night for spiritual chanting in the 1500s. How did this hardly-known bean and beverage become one of the world's largest trade markets in just 500 years? What effect has the dispersion of coffee had on the work force? On social relations? On trade relations? How has human inequality, coercion, and hierarchy found its way into even the most common of beverages? What is it doing to our bodies that makes it such a desired drink? How has caffeine fueled the industrial revolution and 'modernization' that historians like David Christian praise so highly? Coffee has played a significant role in the organization of politics, economics, geography, power, industrialization, philosophy, revolution, and science, and crosses disciplines figuratively and literally; English majors, engineers, lawyers, doctors, golfers, CEOs, construction workers, world leaders, farmers, and musicians have all started their mornings with a mug of steaming coffee.
"Coffee. May you enjoy its convoluted history over many cups."
–Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds
–Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds
Works Cited
Follygraph. 38 Ways to make a Perfect Coffee. 2014. , visually.
HOW TO SUCCEED...Coffee Break. Dir. Rob Ashford. Perf. Daniel Radcliffe and John Laroquette. YouTube. How To Succeed In Business, 29
Mar. 2011. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
"Is This Coffee-Stain Art Awesome?" SodaHead. SodaHead, 21 Feb. 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds – The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
HOW TO SUCCEED...Coffee Break. Dir. Rob Ashford. Perf. Daniel Radcliffe and John Laroquette. YouTube. How To Succeed In Business, 29
Mar. 2011. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
"Is This Coffee-Stain Art Awesome?" SodaHead. SodaHead, 21 Feb. 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Pendergrast, Mark. Uncommon Grounds – The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. New York: Basic Books, 1999.