How the Origins of Coffee Culture Fuelled Early Scientific Thought

It's the 18th century and the coffee you just forked over a whole penny over for tastes like dirty water, but luckily, along with the bitter brew, you are getting a front row seat to the greatest minds of the generation discussing and debating everything from dolphin anatomy to the transit of Venus. All of a sudden, that penny is looking like pretty good value. This is a brief introduction to early coffee houses (often known as Penny universities) and the impact that coffee culture has had on scientific thought since its earliest introduction to the UK. To find out more about coffee-related objects in our collection, explore the Science Museum Group's Collection online: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup... Chapters: 00:00 The earliest connections between science and coffee. 00:56 Coffee routes into the UK 01:21 Coffee as a social drink 01:50 London shop signs 02:50 Coffee houses and women 03:20 the other functions of a coffee house 05:13 Coffee houses as hotbeds of sedition 06:15 Banning coffee houses Images courtesy of: Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collections Alamy Archive.org Art Institute Chicago Lloyds of London Metropolitan Museum of Art The Granger Collection/Alamy Wellcome Collection Wikimedia Commons Yale Centre for British Art Under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license: Board of Trustees of the Science Museum The Clockmakers' Museum/Clarissa Bruce The Trustees of the British Museum Wien Museum/Birgit und Peter Kainz #coffee #history #georgianlondon