The Devil's Cup

The Devil's Cup

A Turkish Proverb says, "Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as death and sweet as Love."

First of all I do not define Coffee as food, however Coffee is the number one source of caffeine and is given credit for the age of enlightenment and waking mankind from a drunken stupor. The average Northern European, including children, drank beer for breakfast, ale for lunch, stout with dinner, and a few mugs in between.

Every housewife baked bread and made beer. Every one was drunk all the time and those in positions of power drank much more. To make maters worse it is now believed the hallucinogenic fungus ergot, the base for LSD, grew in the bread. So, it stands to reason that our ancestors were living their lives in a fog. The road to enlightenment was paved with coffee beans although it did have its potholes.

The myth is that a goat herder noticed his goats were unusually energetic and after watching them he noticed they were eating berries that fell from a tree, he tried the berries and suddenly had great energy. Originally people chewed the leaves or munched the beans. I call these Ethiopian speedballs; the beans were crushed and rolled in fat about the size of a golf ball. The Sufi mystics of Yamen discovered coffee but the Turks are responsible for making Coffee the world's most popular drug. They were the ones who controlled the port of Mocha.

A Turkish ambassador introduced the French to coffee in the 1500s, and Turkish soldiers brought the bags of beans to Vienna and the rest of the Adriatic coast. Not every one appreciated Coffee. In Mecca in 1511, a Mamluk Muslim named Kha'ir Beg decided that coffee drinking should be banned and punishable by death, he brought forth two doctors to testify to the drinks horrific affects they said that coffee caused mental alterations in the drinker and was therefor a type of wine. One fool even said he found it indistinguishable from wine only to be taken out and whipped for confessing to have drunk alcohol. Fortunately this ruling was overturned by a group of intellectuals in 1524 only to have the ban reinstated in 1539.

London women hated coffee. In 1674 these women petitioned the mayor to ban the "hell brew". British gentlemen, it said were the "ablest performers in Christendom…with lusty lads of eight hundred years fathering sons and daughters." These amazing feats of sexual prowess, however came to an end when that "abominable heathenish liqueur called coffee dried up their radical moisture. Leaving them with nothing moist except their snotty noses and nothing stiff but their joints." Hmmmmm, well I've not noticed the English having become extinct so these girls obviously solved their problem.

While most of continental Europe still believed coffee dries up brain cells amongst other things, London did became the Café capitol of the world. These were the places intellects; artists, pirates, and bums would pass their days away recreating the universe. This is where sea captains and merchants met to hear the latest shipping news. Boats sank often in those days so some of the regulars started offering odds on which ships would make it to port, if the ship made it back the owner lost the bet and Lloyd's Coffee House kept the money, if the ship went down, Lloyd's paid for the loss. Thus the invention of insurance. Of course Lloyd's of London is no longer a coffeehouse.

The coffeehouse of the 1600s is also where the "T.I.P" was born. A small copper box with T.I.P pounded on it was set on the counter and patrons dropped in some change. T.I.P means "To Insure Promptness".

We can thank the ghost of St. Frances of Assisi for our cap-puccino. He was of the Capuchin order of the Catholic Church and he is said to have visited his friend Mateo da Bascio. What Bascio found odd about this visit is the hat St Frances was wearing; it was pointed not square, as was the hat he wore in life. So Bascio started wearing a pointed hat and was imprisoned. There is no actual recipe; but a cap-puccino was thought to be perfect when it is the exact color of the monks robe and Capped with steamed milk.

This is also where milk in coffee became popular however; The Hindu's believed coffee mixed with milk caused leprosy!

Today 90% of Americans consume caffeine in one form or another a day. The coffee market is worth more than $68 billion in the U.S. Despite all the drive through instant gratification windows there are now, it's nice to know there are still popular sit down coffee meeting places left too, but I think very soon we'll have three spickets in our kitchens. Hot, Cold, and Starbucks.
In honor of all of our ancestors have an Irish coffee.

4 tsp. Instant coffee
4 tsp. Sugar
4 ounces Whiskey (if 21 or older)
4 cups boiling Water

Mix, pour in cup and top it off with whipped cream and Enjoy!

To contact Crystal Hayes email her at crystalhayes@peak.org

Added 20 May, 2007 by Crystal