How coffee houses brewed up a liberal world

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London: Optimism is a fleeting commodity these days but there is one thing you can do to ward off existential despair: go to your local coffee shop and order a cup of coffee. Not only is relaxing over a cup of coffee a perfect therapy in troubled times; the world’s booming coffee culture is a sign of the health of the liberal order.

The history of liberalism is inseparable from the history of coffee. Coffee houses first appeared in the West in the late 17th century, when liberal thought was first brewing, and multiplied in the 18th century, when it turned into a movement.

Coffee houses were not just places where people could gather to drink the newly imported dark liquid; they were debating chambers where people could test their opinions, “penny universities” where they could educate themselves, and social networking hubs where people of different classes could rub shoulders.

Jurgen Habermas, the social philosopher who died last month, famously argued that coffee houses provided something radically new: a third space, or “bourgeois public sphere”, separate from the state or the home where people of all social ranks could meet and engage in open discussion.

Coffee houses typically charged a small entrance fee but then provided their customers with everything they needed to engage in self-education and exchange opinions: a large table where you could sit for as long as you liked, with an array of pamphlets and periodicals.

Coffee houses were far more conducive to enlightened conversation than the traditional gathering places, ale houses, for the obvious reason that coffee clarifies the mind while alcohol befuddles it. This process of clarification was particularly true of the coffee of the 18th century, which tended to be extremely strong: served thick and muddy and, according to one consumer, tasting like........

© The Age