The earliest cafe

----Central Asia----------------

The earliest cafes were called Kaveh Kanes and were built in Mecca. Although originally intended for religious purposes, these places soon became centres for chess, small talk, singing, dancing and music. From Mecca, cafes spread to Aden, Medina and Cairo.

-----Egypt in North Africa----------------

After the conquest of Egypt by Samlim I in 1517, coffee was brought to Constantinople, where people gradually developed the habit of drinking coffee. Coffee was introduced to Damascus in 1530 and Aleppo in 1532, where people picked up the habit. The most famous cafes in Damascus are the Rose Cafe and the Door of Salvation Cafe.

Although coffee houses did not exist until 1554 in Constantinople, they soon became known for their luxurious decor as shopkeepers competed to attract customers. They became places for social and business negotiations, and gradually became centres of political debate. At various times governments banned coffee production-at one point its defenders were sewn into leather bags and thrown into the Bosphorus Strait-but when taxes were imposed on coffee, it gained legitimacy.

----Italy on the Continent----------------

The Florian Cafe in Piaza San Marco in Venice is the oldest surviving cafe in Europe. Why are coffee shops so popular in the Middle East and Europe? The reason is simple, because there was no place like a cafe before. Before coffee shops, there was no place to drink a good, relatively inexpensive drink with friends.

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Venetian merchants introduced coffee to Europe in 1615. It appeared in Europe a few years later than tea and many years later than cocoa. Tea was first sold in Europe in 1610 and cocoa was brought to Europe by the Spanish from the New World in 1528. When coffee first appeared in Italy, some priests thought coffee was a sinful product and should be strictly banned. Archbishop Clement VIII (1592-1605) decided to taste coffee himself, and instead of banning it he declared that "coffee should be crowned as the true Christian drink."

Coffee was initially sold at high prices as a drug and was sold in large quantities by lemonade vendors. The earliest Italian café that can be identified is the Bottega Cafe, which opened in Venice in 1863 (another less reliable version dates to 1645). In 1720, Floriano Francescari opened the Florian Cafe in Piazza San Marco, one of the most prestigious and expensive cafes in the world (excluding Japan). Cafés are still called Caffés in Italy and Cafés elsewhere in Europe.

Since then, cafes have spread rapidly throughout Italy, most of them in Venice. Georgio Quadri was the first merchant to sell authentic Turkish coffee, opening a coffee shop in 1775. Then Duc di Toscania, Imperatore Imperatrice della Russia, Tamerlano, Fantae di Diana, Dame venete, Pace, Arabo-piastrelle and others opened coffee shops.

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The first coffeehouse in England was run by a man named Jacob in Oxford in 1650. About four years later, Oxford had a second cafe, Cirques Johnson, reportedly run by a man named Jacob. A coffee club was born in a private home near All Souls 'College, which later became the Royal Society.

1652 London's first café opens in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill, run by Pasqua Rosee and Mr Bowman. Rosie could be Greek. The cafe became an example of many that followed, the most famous of which was Mol's Coffee House in Exeter, Devon. Sir Walter Raleigh used to drink coffee and smoke his pipe there.

The best-known surviving London cafe was founded by Edward Lioyd in 1688, originally on Tower Street and later moved to Lombard Street. For the convenience of its customers, Lloyd's always prepared a number of forms to register the insured ships of its customers. Later, the Lloyd family founded one of the largest private insurance companies in the world.

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In North America, the earliest references to coffee date back to 1668, when coffee was described as a drink mixed with sugar (or honey) and cinnamon. Soon after, coffee shops opened in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and other towns.

The first two coffee houses in Boston were the London Coffee House and Gutterudge Coffee House, which opened in 1691. One of the most famous is the Green Dragon Cafe, which in 1773 was the largest, most expensive and most ornate coffee exchange in the world. It was built in 1808 as a seven-story $50,000 replica of Lloyd's Cafe in London, but it was destroyed by fire only 10 years later.

In 1683, New York began to have a market for mainly green coffee beans, and coffee soon replaced the must brand beer as the main breakfast drink. William Penn ordered coffee beans from Pennsylvania in New York, where the first coffee shop was King's Arms, which opened in 1696. This was followed in 1730 by the Exchange Coffee House on Broad Street, which later became a major trading center. But it pales in comparison to Merchants 'Coffee House. It was in the Merchant's Cafe that the Bank of New York was founded in 1784 and issued its first stocks in 1790. Tontine Cafe on Wall and Water Streets served as the headquarters of the New York Stock Exchange for 10 years.

In Philadelphia, the third most famous city in early American history, the earliest coffee house opened in 1700-then called Ye Coffee House-and its main competitor was London Coffee House. American cafes, unlike European cafes, were centers of conservatives rather than radicals, Republicans, or literary types. In cities lacking public buildings, cafes are often places for trials and meetings of city councillors.