The following is a speech done on the importance of coffeehouses (all tongue-in-cheek, of course) for a class assignment. All you see below is the actual written 'script', word-for-word, copypasta -
My
fellow classmates, how was your morning? How did you wake up today?
Perhaps you woke up with a nice warm cup of coffee. How did you get
this coffee? Perhaps you made it yourself, perhaps you went to a
Starbucks along your way here, perhaps you don't even drink coffee.
For all that matters, there is no wrong time to have a nice, warm,
drink in your hand, and there is nothing like going to a coffeehouse
at the end of the day.
But
coffehouses are more than just places to grab a warm, tasty,
overpriced beverage. Coffeehouses, are ideal places to gather, share
ideas, and commune well before green sirens took over every street
corner. Way back, centuries ago in Istanbul, the first coffeehouse
was established to much popularity. People began to gather around as
these places of coffee expanded throughout the Ottoman Empire and
beyond. In these warm, welcome places, people talked. They talked of
the news, of criticism, of anything without regard or fear. A brief
moment where one had a freedom of speech in a time of massive
control. As expected, countries attempted to ban the coffeeshops with
success akin to that of the brief prohibition period of the United
States.
In
1600s Europe, coffeeshops became commonplace with 3,000 shops in
England and a near-monopoly and Paris. Again, attempts were made to
surpress the coffee culture, again to no avail and infact causing the
opposite effect – more people flocked to them. Much more so that by
the 1800s the coffeeshop had nearly replaced clubs in England as
common meeting places, with some being a precursor of sorts to a
stock exchange. The coffeehouse had effectively become a hub of
information.
Over
here in the States, however, this hub of information, until very
recently, did not exist in the same way. Coffeehouses were
near-nonexistent until the 1950s, when immigrants from Italy brought
forth a style of cafes common to their home region – espresso. Even
then, this wasn't widespread. The hub of information was more of an
entertainment venue common mainly in art districts and college towns
like the very one we're in.
Slowly,
but surely, the concept changed. Youth started to copy the concept
of the coffeehouse, and small organizations communed in these cafes,
sharing information once again. However, to much Americans in the
20th
century, a coffeehouse was a mere diner where coffee was an
afterthought, and the overall intent was a place to dine. Then in the
1970s and more rapidly a couple of decades later, the coffeehouse in
the original form was finally made widespread by a Seattle chain
started by the aforementioned youth. Starbucks enacted a catalyst –
suddenly coffeehouses, independent and otherwise popped up across the
nation. And as in the early times, people began using these
coffeehouses to gather, meet, and more recently stay connected to one
another. The coffeehouse was finally a hub of information in the new
world.
So
next time you enter a Starbucks, a Peet's, or Mishka's, don't just
grab a cup of coffee, take a seat, socialize, hang out, or even go
online if you wish. As you do so, take note and think – you are
taking part of one of the oldest hubs of free communication,
expression, and information, a type of place that has so much history
and culture behind it. A place of influence.
