Historians have long argued about what gave rise to the Age of Enlightenment in theeighteenth century. Some have hypothesized that it was at least in some part due to the riseof coffee houses. That seems a bit farfetched until we look at it more closely.

Very quickly after the rise of coffee houses, there emerged a distinction between them and thepubs. Rumors of the health benefits of coffee spread and it was soon agreed that coffeehouses spurred more sober, rational thought and sharper political discussion, whereastaverns catered to rowdiness and intoxication. A coffee house was a place to be exposed tonew ideas, current events and discussions of how life might be lived. Until this time, a forumto discuss new ideas had not existed. Now, merchants, traders, writers, philosophers, andpoliticians had such a forum. Gradually they found other ways of meeting and coffee housesbegan to wane in popularity until the Starbucks generation brought them back twenty-fiveyears ago.

Some historians claim that coffee replaced “beer soup,” which was what most Europeans andAmericans had subsisted on, with a “drug” that now kept them awake and allowed them toconverse well into the night in a far more lucid way. This, they feel, was what gave rise to boththe French and American revolutions. Other historians say that a higher level of leisure hadcreated an environment in which people could afford the time to meet in coffee houses todiscuss the latest farming techniques, business trends and, of course, politics.

King Charles of England actually attempted a ban of coffee houses in 1675, fearing that theymight result in his loss of power or even decapitation. However, his ministers loved theircoffee so much that they overruled the ban.

So, did coffee houses give rise to these meetings or was it the level of leisure that hadsuddenly come about? It does seem logical that people with a clear head would be morecapable of holding onto an idea for a longer period of time, and would have the mental acuityto grasp what each other was saying. So, perhaps it was a happy confluence of increasedleisure and a switch to coffee that enabled so many of those wonderful thinkers to hammerout their ideas for a new nation and those with a scientific bent to come up with so many ofthe major breakthroughs during the eighteenth century in Europe and America.

Some of our founding fathers may have sat in these very coffee houses discussing the futureof the colonies or how government should be, noting the pitfalls or failures of the monarchiesof England and France. Perhaps a seemingly harmless thing like the emergence of coffeehouses actually influenced our future. Interestingly, almost as quickly as they sprang up,coffee houses began to decline. They had served their purpose and were no longer neededas meeting places for political or literary critics and debate.