Coffee: A Global History (Edible)

by Jonathan Morris

From the Colonial Era to the Civil War Americans’ preference for coffee is often presented as an outcome of the struggle for independence. Tea became a symbolic focus for the colonists’ demands for ‘no taxation without representation’. The British government imposed a duty on tea imports into the colonies, which were also part of an East India Company monopoly. Protestors staged the Boston Tea Party on 16 December 1773, tipping tea chests off ships in Chesapeake Bay harbour. Consequently, the story goes, American patriots switched to coffee. United States Coffee Consumption Statistics, 1880–19501 Date Total Imports (million lbs) Consumption per Capita (lbs) Share of World Imports (%) 1800 8.8 1.65 1830 38.3 2.98 1860 182.0 5.78 28.7 1890 490.1 8.31 36.1 1920 1,244.9 11.88 56.1 1950 2,427.7 16.04 63.6 The reality is more complicated. Coffee had long been available in the colonies; particularly in Boston, where Dorothy Jones became the first person licensed to sell ‘coffee and cuchaletto [chocolate]’ in 1670. Coffee houses spread through the city, mostly doubling as taverns: the Green Dragon, founded in 1697, was a regular meeting place for political activists. Coffee imports into the colonies were also controlled by the British, however, coming principally from Jamaica.