Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate Consumption in 17thC England
One of the joys of being a student again is having access to interesting databases. Poking around the Library catalogue at my university, I noticed some articles from the 17th Century relating to tea and the East-India Company. Low and behold, they were links to images of these documents held in the Early English Books online database. I won’t reproduce any of the images here because I’m not certain of all of the copyright implications, but I will pull out some gems for your enjoyment.
“An Answer to a paper set forth by the coffee-men directed to the Honourable, the Commons in Parliament assembled being reflections upon some propositions that were exhibited to the Parliament for the changing the excise of coffee, tea, and chocolate into a custom upon the commodities.” This 1680 title is more than a mouthful, but it contains some statistics on coffee, tea, and chocolate consumption in England. According to the paper the British consumed the following:
“Coffee…100 Tuns a year” I assume they mean tons, but old measurement systems is not my specialty.
“Tea, 27000 Pounds a year”
“Chocolate, 6000 Pounds”
“Cocoa-nut, 300 Hundreds”
The purposes of the letter to Parliament was to argue the relative merits of various excise taxes proposed for these beverages. The source of the statistics was the Coffee-Men of London, who certainly had the best interests of their own business at heart.
That is a mouthful. That much flowery language is actually painful to me these days. And add to that the source–coffee men. Ouch. I don’t need the kind of anxiety coffee kicks me with. And I can just feel it while I read this. Oh well, it’s interesting history. –Teaternity
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
Of course you may quote and link to my material. That is how scholarship works…