In addition to roasting and drinking coffee, one of my passions is reading about coffee’s fascinating history. Consider J.S. Bach’s 1732 Coffee Cantata, an opera about a daughter who defies her father’s orders to stop drinking coffee because “If you don’t give up coffee then you shan’t go to any wedding feast…you will have to resign yourself to never taking a husband.” In eighteenth century Germany, coffee was considered so powerful a drug that a woman who drank it was thought to be an addict.

“How sweet the coffee tastes,
Lovelier than a thousand kisses,
Sweeter far than muscatel wine.
I must have my coffee,
And, if anyone wishes to please me,
Ah, let him present me with coffee!”
As sung by Lieschen, the disobedient daughter

Lieschen lies to her father and promises “to never again take coffee” in order to get herself a husband. But, she secretly sings “No suitor is to come to my house unless…..it is written into the marriage contract that I will be permitted to take my coffee whenever I want. ”

This love for the bean is no surprise to me. In all of my readings, where ever coffee emigrated, its effects were astounding. Initially reviled in every European country and America as “Satan’s beverage”, or accused of causing all kinds of ailments, coffee was simultaneously converting large numbers of devotees for its roasted flavor and stimulating properties. And as soon as 1872, “The proudest son of the highest civilization can no longer live happily without coffee…..the whole social life of many nations is based on this insignificant bean.” (source:Harper’s Magazine, 1872)

I for one, agree. I cannot live happily without coffee. Like Lieschen, I must have it. I have not yet contemplated what I would give up or trade for it, because luckily, I don’t have to!