Europe on the coffee table

If the origin of coffee can be traced back to ancient African and Arab cultures, then the cafe people remember today is a pure European culture. more accurately, it is even a cradle and historical witness of modern European civilization.

When coffee flowed slowly and inexorably to Europe in the 17th century from its hometown of Ethiopia in Africa, through Yemen and the Ottoman Empire, which dominated the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East, it was also the turbulent Europe that bid farewell to the last darkness of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern social change and democracy.

Columbus's discovery of the New World, the upsurge of oriental adventure travel and maritime trade, as well as the unprecedented cultural conflicts and exchanges brought about by the Ottoman Expeditions to Europe, opened up the horizons of Europe. The first batch of coffee beans from the east were unloaded in the port of Amsterdam in 1637, the new sea routes in the Atlantic Ocean and a steady stream of caravans across the Balkans, so that the "charming golden coffee of Constantinople", which has always been regarded as a luxury by the West, has stepped out of the narrow circle of aristocratic society and become a common hobby of citizens from all walks of life.

The cafe is a product of pure European culture

In 1645, the first open street cafe in Europe was born in Venice, which had long belonged to the Habsburg dynasty of Austria. Paris and Vienna of France also followed, with relaxed and romantic French sentiment and elegant introspective Viennese literati temperament each with its own style, which became the forerunner of the two major trends of European cafes in the future.

Other emerging commercial ports Hamburg, Liverpool, Marseille, Antwerp, Lisbon. It is also the beachhead of the cafe. In just a few decades, the simple coffee shop with Turkish style founded by the Amenians and Arabs has quickly developed into an elegant and comfortable pure European coffee shop with crystal chandeliers. It is the social life center of the emerging "bourgeois", the political salon of ambitious Republicans, the "Finney University" of Enlightenment believers spreading radical ideas and culture, the club of free press sources, and the paradise of poets and artists meeting.

The life form of the upper class took to the streets

The cafe brought the closed salon life of the upper class to the streets. in many cities, it was the earliest public social place where citizens could meet freely. People read newspapers, debate, play cards, play billiards, watch satirical dramas, listen to music, watch and auction new-school paintings or newly invented machines, novelty and animals brought back from all over the world by ocean-going explorers.

By around 1700, there were nearly 3000 cafes in London alone, and many of the frenzied waves of the Republican revolution sweeping European metropolises began.

From Rousseau and Voltaire, the banner of freedom of personality liberation, to the Jacobins, the pioneers of the French Revolution, who advocated violence and extremes, they all had their own regular caf é s. The widely influential political cafes in the era of the Great Revolution played the role of the "popular parliament" as the predecessor of democratic politics for quite a long time. Dickens, the founder of realistic novels, Balzac and Zola, writers famous for their critical style, avant-garde poet artists Kafka, Schoenberg, Picasso, Brecht Until a series of brilliant names, such as Freud, Adler, the master of psychoanalysis, and Wittgenstein, the founder of modern analytical philosophy, wrote the history of cultural development in modern Europe for hundreds of years on the regulars of different cafes.

Going to a cafe is a way of life.

As for the "cafe writers" in Paris and Vienna who were famous in the West at the beginning of the century, they spent their whole literary career here. At that time, most of them were short of money and did not have their own living room, so they met every day in a fixed cafe to discuss literature and abstract philosophy. They also used it to make friends and feel new. They negotiated manuscripts and contracts with publishers and newspaper editors who often came to the cafe, and were able to use telephones that were rare at the time.

The cafe is the center of their life and literary base in the metropolis, and it is also the place where they can most inspire their creation. many of their masterpieces are not written in a closed study, but on a coffee table gathered by literary friends for years. They are almost always the last guests to put their chairs on the table when they close at midnight, sometimes flocking to the next cafe that closes later, only to return home slowly after the morning paper goes on sale the next day.

The famous "coffee shop writer" claims that his lifelong career is first as a regular customer of a coffee shop, followed by a writer, and that he goes to a coffee shop not for coffee, but as a way of existence. Such people are not limited to the literati circle, the regular customers of cafes come from the whole broad "leisure class", teaching and learning, according to each side, looking for fun and bosom friends in all kinds of cafes and smoke. "Gentleman Cafe", "Painters Cafe", "journalist Cafe", "Music Caf é", "College Student Cafe", "Congressman Cafe", "Workers Cafe", "Actors Cafe", "psychologist Cafe". They are varied, each with their own atmosphere and style, and even their artistic tastes are quite different.

Live or die with a fixed cafe.

No wonder the tasteful French have a traditional saying that it may be more difficult to get someone to change a cafe by the Seine than to change a religion! In an authentic cafe, regular customers not only never change their coffee shop easily, but also have a fixed time to come to the cafe and the habit of which coffee table to sit on. Of course, this loyal relationship is also reflected in the hospitable and tireless host, without greeting, the old waiter who is familiar with his frequent customers' temper and hobby will bring his favorite kind of coffee, accompanied by a plate of special snacks, and even bring his favorite newspapers and periodicals, needless to say thank you, which are taken for granted in an authentic cafe.

The relationship between regular guests and hospitality here is like loyal and tacit friends, occasionally penniless and will not be given the cold shoulder. From hospitality to other regular guests around, they will contribute generously, and you can spit out any grievances here. As long as a small cup of coffee can sit for a day, read a newspaper, talk to people, sometimes meet two or three groups of friends in succession, or play cards all night, the waiter will not have any complaints or displeasure, but always smile and deliver a cup of free water. this tradition still exists in the Vienna Cafe today. The demeanor of European cafes not only makes it a paradise for economically disadvantaged literati and scholars, but also makes many of them famous in literature, but also become experts who know the mysteries of coffee tasting.

For hundreds of years, kinds of coffee have emerged one after another. in traditional cafes, people never say a cup of coffee, but each has its own interesting name. There are often several pages of coffee lists with different ingredients, different flavors and dazzling tastes. Only an expert can enjoy it satisfactorily, while outsiders who don't know how to do it will inevitably scratch their scalps, look around and take the coffee in other people's cups as an example. In addition to milk coffee, the variety of coffee with wine and cocoa is even more varied. Making coffee is a complex art, and drinking coffee is also fastidious.