This article contains high amount of caffeine.
Originating in Ethiopia, and surrounds the entire world, coffee has been part of our lives for almost 600 years. This magical liquid has a long history. From Africa to the Middle East, then Ottomans had a great influence on coffee. They had coffee houses where people gathered to have a good time. Over time, it spread across the continents through the influence of traders.
Particularly in London, they took it up with advertising and did what the Ottomans did, creating coffee houses to bring people together in one place to hang out. They became like pubs (or merged with them) where you could hang out and have some time to relax. It is also said that when the Ottomans tried to besiege Vienna, they left behind some sacks of coffee beans, both in the form of coffee beans and as raw seeds. When coffee was made there, it became more popular than ever throughout Europe and everyone developed their own taste and style of coffee.
In such a short time (if we consider the history of food and other ingredients and consumables in general), coffee had travelled a long way between continents and cultures. I think it is a fascinating story. The fact that it is widely praised around the world is also interesting. I have checked from many different sources that more than 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world every day. That is an incredible amount of coffee.
Photo by Tina Guina on Unsplash
Why are we talking about coffee *takes a sip* all of a sudden? I’ve wanted to write about it before, but just couldn’t find the opportunity. However, I realised that I had a routine that I had almost never missed since I started writing on Medium. Every single morning, after breakfast, I would drink my coffee before writing an article. It became a thing for me, unconsciously.
Then I wondered if this daily activity was helping me, or at least keeping me focused on my writing. Because I also realised that I did the same thing before I wrote my stories in the evening, or whenever I visited my favourite cafés, for the same reason. It felt like a necessity, like I couldn’t write without it. Fortunately, no, I am not that addicted. But I think it helps me in a way.
Of course, we all know that it contains caffeine and helps you feel energetic, at least for a while. Whether it wakes you up in the morning or helps you concentrate throughout the day, people enjoy their magic potion called coffee. I understand if you don’t like coffee, or if you only drink tea (which I do a lot that too, being Turkish), but don’t worry, I want to focus more on the writing part now.
In one of my previous articles I mentioned that, whatever surrounds you and the community you live in, becomes a part of your daily life. I focused mainly on the negative aspects of it, such as sickness, gloomy vibes, government problems, etc. But there are positive aspects too. Coffee has been one of them for centuries. Because, as we said, it is widespread, known and loved, it also becomes part of art.
From plays about coffee in the theatres, to sonatas dedicated to it, to dozens of poems, stories, fairy tales and scientific studies, coffee has become part of everyday life. Coffee has a place in the most diverse works of art, and I believe it is the most influential of all consumables.
Just as it finds a place in all kinds of works of art, it also helps you to create your works of art in them, in coffee houses or cafés. Many literary works began with a sip of coffee in certain places that writers would return to until they felt they had made progress or completed their work.
This activity has also been practised by famous authors from different eras. Honore de Balzac, a French novelist, was known to drink up to 50 cups of coffee a day during his writing marathons. Joanne Kathleen Rowling wrote the early chapters of “Harry Potter” in Edinburgh’s Elephant House. If you have seen the movie “Tolkien”, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had a group of friends who met in Oxford just to talk about poetry, over tea and coffee. The French existentialist philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir often wrote at Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore in Paris, which were frequented by Jean-Paul Sartre and other intellectuals such as Ernest Hemingway.
I always had my own spots in certain cafés when I moved to another part of the city. They always became part of me and made me feel at home. I just can’t feel the same way in other places. No matter it is the stormy weather or my birthday, I decided to visit these places that have inspired, hosted and motivated me to start, continue or finish a chapter of my stories. And I feel like I am cheating that place when I go somewhere else to write. Do you have a personal spots in any of these cafés?
In addition to personal experiences, coffee brings people together. As we mentioned at the beginning, it was part of people’s daily lives, whatever the era. Maybe the atmosphere was different, maybe there were cultural differences, but in the end the reason was the same: to bring people together. I find joy in this sense, although I prefer to be alone in these places most of the time (more time to concentrate on writing).
It is a kind of time travel, when you think about it. The feeling that people are coming and going, having a good time, enjoying their drinks just like you, that some other writers or your favourite people have been here, that you have invited your friends and let them know your personal place… This feeling excites me and makes me want to write in these places even more. It feels like these places are a vault of memories just for you.
Photo by Hoang Tran on Unsplash
Now I am going to finish my article, pack my backpack with blank papers and books that will help me shape my mind for my stories, and enjoy a good coffee (yes, another one after I have had one now) outside. My seats in these places are calling me and I have no intention of leaving them.
There is a saying in my language that goes like this: “A cup of coffee has forty years of memory”. It represents the importance of coffee in the culture, reflecting the hospitality, friendship, delicacy and entertainment it brings to one and another.
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