Coffee was introduced in 1675 to the court in Brandenburg in northern Germany by a Dutch physician. He was encouraged by Frederick William , a ruler known for his Calvinistic attitudes and temperate habits. Around the same time , the first coffee houses opened in Bremen, Hanover and Hamburg. Other cities rapidly follow suit and by the early 18th century, there were eight in Leipzig and ten or more in Berlin alone.
Coffee remained a drink of the aristocratic classes for some time. The middle and lower classes did not take to it until the early 18th century and it was even later before coffee was drunk at home.
Since the coffee houses were a male stronghold, middle-class women set up Kaffeekränzschen (coffee clubs)- referred to by their uneasy husbands as Kaffeeklatch ( coffee gossip).
In 1777, in an ill-concealed attempt to protect the breweries and to stem the flow of income to foreign dealers, Frederick the Great, rather hypocritically, issued a manifesto, part of which reads:
"It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subject...My people must drink beer...Many battles were fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer; ans the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be depended upon to endure hardship or to beat his enemies..."
.....to be continued......
resources: "The world Encyclopedia of Coffee"- Mary Banks, Christine McFadden, Catherine Atkinson/
