With the price of college skyrocketing these days maybe it's time we go back to the 18th century when you could get
a good university education at a coffee house for just a penny,
the cost of one dish of coffee.
The Penny University and 18th century coffee this time on Drinking History.
So I thought looking for an old recipe for coffee was a little silly, seeing as it's just coffee and water.
Not a lot you can do but it turns out there are a lot of different ways that they used to make it
and still make it.
In fact in John Knott's 1723 cookbook 'The Cooks and Confectioner's Dictionary'
or 'The Accomplished Housewives Companion' he has three different ways for making coffee.
One is called To Make Coffee, then Another Better Way,
and finally Another the Best Way.
I don't really know why anyone would go with the first way when there is a better, and the best way but
I'm gonna actually split the difference and go with Another Better Way.
Take running, or river-water,
put your coffee in cold; mix it well with the water, set them over the fire, and let them warm,
heat, and scald, and boil together, till the coffee sinks.
Then take it off, let it settle and drink it.
There is no river water nearby me, or at least any that you'd want to use for cooking so
it is to the tap I go for my one quart or one liter of water.
In the previous recipe he's a little bit more specific on exactly how much water to coffee to use. He says
for every quart you can use one, two, or three ounces of coffee, not too specific but
more specific I'm going to again split the difference and use
2 ounces or 60 grams of coffee beans.
And the beans that I'm using today are really special to me, at least, because I got to kind of help choose how they were roasted.
So short story here a little Tasting History history.
When I first started the channel I scoured the internet for everything I could learn on how to make good YouTube videos,
and there was another YouTuber named Graham Stefan who is in the finance space,
but he had a wonderful course called the YouTube Creator Academy and I took it and I actually credit a lot of
Tasting History's early success from what I learned in watching his academy.
Well fast forward to last fall and we actually got in touch on Instagram
and he said hey I actually am part owner
of a company called Bankroll Coffee, would you be interested in coming up with a flavor
and tying it into history somehow?
Well since he is in finance and I'm in history, Penny University
just kind of popped into my mind,
and so over the next few months I got to help develop
Penny University coffee which is a flavor in Bankroll Coffee.
I'll put a link to this in the description if you want to give it a try,
but honestly for this you can use pretty much any coffee that you want.
So first I'm going to grind my two ounces of coffee beans into a fairly coarse grind,
then pour the water into a kettle
and you can do this in a regular pot but it's going to be easier in a kettle simply because it's going to be easier to pour.
Then add your coffee and set the kettle on the stove until the water is boiling,
and it says until the grounds fall to the bottom, but
once it starts boiling it gets really dark. I don't know how you can see the grounds going to the bottom so
I let it boil for like 40 seconds
and I figured that was enough because it's gonna steep because you have to leave it then
to let the grounds continue to fall to the bottom,
and while they do we can go back to the 18th century and look at those early English coffee houses
that boasted such an inexpensive education.
There are a few things in this world more sobering than a cup of black coffee.
Though technically it actually does not sober you up, but it feels like it does
and a poem from 1651 makes a good case for this.
It talks about the treacherous grape and foggy ale drowning people's reason
and then "Coffee arrives, that grave and wholesome liquor, that heals the stomach, makes the genius quicker,
relieves the memory revives the sad, and cheers the spirits without making mad."
And in that same year England opened its first coffee house in Oxford.
And it quickly became a place for the scholars of Oxford to meet and discuss ideas,
So that it ended up earning a reputation for being a wonderful place of learning just like the colleges that surrounded it.
"So great a university I think there ne'er was any,
in which you may a scholar be for spending of a penny."
Hence they became known as Penny Universities, and you would think that that was a good thing,
but in 1661 Anthony Wood complained that instead of discussing scholarly topics
"Nothing but news of the affairs of Christendom is discoursed of at coffee houses".
And he eventually posed the question "Why doth solid and serious learning decline,
and few or none follow it now in the university?
Answer:
because of coffee houses where they spend all their time."
But it's not like discussion was frivolous. I mean coffee houses became
a crucible for new ideas from England's collegiate elite.
In one famous story from 1684 the architect and scientist Christopher Wren
physicist Robert Hooke who discovered the law of elasticity
and the astronomer Edmund Halley of comet fame
were in a coffee house discussing gravity's effect on the elliptical orbit of the planets.
Very high brow conversation.
Well Hooke made a pronouncement that the inverse square law
could account for exactly what they were seeing and that he could prove it.
Well Christopher Wren was skeptical and he actually bet Hooke and Halle that they couldn't and it turns out
he was right, they could not.
But not long after Halle was recounting this tale to a colleague of his and
the colleague decided that he would take up the task
and that colleague was Isaac Newton.
So not only was he able to prove it but it even inspired one of his seminal works of scientific literature
the 'Principia Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.'
What's funny is that for years after Hooke who had first mused on the subject
but was unable to prove it went around telling people that
it was his idea first and he kind of deserved the credit, and it kind of reminds me
of my friend from college who used to go around telling people that he had had the idea to make
'The Lord of the Rings' into a three movie series
before Peter Jackson and that Peter Jackson stole it and he owed him money.
Sure Jan.
Now not long after the university set embraced coffee houses
the institution spread to London which became the coffee capital of Europe for years,
and it was a place where all men, not women because they weren't allowed, but all men were welcome.
"Gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither and may without affront sit down together."
And that mingling of classes wasn't a very common occurrence in the ale houses of the time,
and another way that coffee houses were different from their ale house cousins was in things like
toasting with coffee was considered taboo because of its association with alcohol,
and if an altercation took place then whoever was deemed responsible for starting it
had to buy everyone present a dish of coffee.
How civilized,
and with all of this sober mingling the coffee houses allowed for
a new form of conversation and free exchange of ideas
just like it had in the university towns, but now it extended to all walks of life.
Merchants, actors, artists, politicians, even clergy,
and often the coffee houses then ended up catering to one profession more than others,
and so they would use that coffee house as a way to get business or find jobs.
Like if you needed a carpenter you would go to the carpenter's coffee house and put up a help wanted sign.
They also used them to do business. People actually basically used them as an office
and they would spend so much time at the coffee house that they would use that as their address rather than their home
One of the most enduring legacies of coffee houses at the time was the profusion of newspapers
in London because often the coffeehouse would publish
the discussions that their members were having on any given day.
"Amongst which the London Gazette comes out on Mondays and Thursdays,
the Daily Current every day, but Sunday the Postman, Flying Post, and Post Boys
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays."
They would print stock prices, theater reviews, Parliamentary votes, and all sorts of other news.
"There's nothing done in all the World, from Monarch to the Mouse,
but every day or night tis hurled into the coffee house."
And if there was more pressing news then a runner would go around from coffee house to coffee house to spread the word.
If a war broke out or somebody famous died though sometimes it ended up just kind of being gossip.
"There was a fellow in town some years ago, who used to divert himself
by telling a lye at Charing Cross in the morning at eight of the clock,
and then following it through all parts of town until eight at night."
Like playing a big game of telephone where he was at either end and just seeing how it went in the middle,
and while i'm sure there was a lot of frivolous conversation and gossip going around
in the coffee houses of the time they also played host to some of England's more serious endeavors.
Adam Smith wrote much of the wealth of nations at the British coffee house,
and one of London's most enduring institutions began at a coffee house for ship captains owners and merchants.
All sorts of shipping information passed through this coffee house that was owned by Edward Lloyd
and eventually underwriters who wanted to ensure the cargo or the ships themselves
set up at the booths in the corner of the coffee house
and those booths became the Society of Lloyds,
and today Lloyds of London is the world's leading insurance market.
From Penny Universities to the centers of commerce the coffee houses of England in the 17th and 18th century
were remarkable places. Places fueled by the dark caffeinated drink
that I'm about to enjoy.
So I put this into well- actually a tea cup but really during the 18th century they would have
used a saucer but a little bit deeper and then eventually those saucers started to have handles
and that eventually then turned into the coffee cup,
but I don't have any of the deep saucers that they had so I'm going with this. Let's give it a shot.
Smells like coffee.
It's good. I'm- it's bitter.
It's coffee. I feel like it's not as strong as modern coffee
but but then I feel like there's also a little bit less grounds in it than you would usually do.
It is oilier than than if I made it like in a drip machine. There
is definitely a sheen on top of this but sheen or no the flavor of the actual coffee is really quite wonderful though I did
kind of pick it out so you know what what what was I expecting?
It has a nice medium body flavor you know not too light, not too dark. It's kind of exactly where I want it
and I feel like this goes really well if you wanted to add a little bit of creamer
this is this is the way to do it.
So if you ever find yourself in the predicament of not having a
coffee machine which happens all the time to me now you can make it as long as you've got some sort of pot and a flame.
Now I'd say that I'd finish this cup but it's actually afternoon and if I have
more than just a sip afternoon then it really ruins my night, so
I'll have probably one more sip and then switch over to water.
Anyway make sure to follow me on Instagram @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller and I will see you next time
on Drinking History.