UK didn’t ‘do’ coffee like this until relatively recently. In the 60s hanging out in a coffee bar was cool,
The coffee houses were great social levellers, open to all men and indifferent to social status, and as a result associated with equality and republicanism. More generally, coffee houses became meeting places where business could be carried on, news exchanged and the London Gazette (government announcements) read. Lloyd’s of London had its origins in a coffeehouse run by Edward Lloyd, where underwriters of ship insurance met to do business. By 1739, there were 551 coffeehouses in London; each attracted a particular clientele divided by occupation or attitude,
From wikipedia. Coffee houses are nothing new.
I never said they were. 🙂 My point was that UK didn’t ‘do’ coffee like this until relatively recently.
If I’d really wanted to get into it my coffee related musings, I could have gone on to say that the first coffee houses here were far from the egalitarian havens you suggest, and must have been full of social climbers. In fact, the wiki page you quote goes on to say clientele included Tories and Whigs, wits and stockjobbers, merchants and lawyers, booksellers and authors, men of fashion or the “cits” of the old city center. Hardly a chimneysweep in sight!