What’s the best thing about waking up? It’s probably not Folgers in your cup, but the jingle is catchy. Its iconic, and really sums up America’s love of coffee; the quintessential morning beverage. But it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, tea was the drink of choice.
While the states were still just British colonies, the most-consumed beverage was tea. It was the drink of England, so it made sense that tea would also be the drink of choice in the new world. Not that coffee hadn’t been introduced though; it just wasn’t popular.
Coffee would first make its way to America by none other than Captain John Smith, the founder of the first colony in the United States, the Colony of Virginia in Jamestown, in 1607. Smith had become familiar with the drink during a voyage to Turkey, but it never really took off. Tea still reigned.
It would be more than half a century later, in 1668, that coffee would be mentioned again. This time it was in New York, and the drink was flavored with honey and cinnamon. But the beverage was more considered “only a drink for the well-to-do.”
Revolution
Over the next century, coffee houses would begin to sprout up throughout the colonies, and many taverns would serve coffee right alongside beer. But coffee had its challenges. It was expensive, and was time intensive to brew.
Unlike today, you couldn’t just throw some grounds into a coffee pot, and a few minutes later, have a nice pipping hot cup of Joe. Instead, stores would carry green coffee beans, which you then had to roast yourself over a fire. If you burnt them at all, which was quite easy to do, then the coffee would often end up with a foul taste.
Then 1773 happened. The British Parliament passed the Tea Act, which would lead to revolution. To make it brief, the Tea Act didn’t create any new tax, and in fact had repealed a tax on tea. But it did leave one such duty on tea intact.
The result of the tax actually made tea cheaper, largely because it allowed the British East India Company to undercut the tea sold by smugglers, which was completely untaxed. At the time, upwards of 90 percent of the tea in the colonies was being sold by these smugglers, and the big draw was that there were no taxes associated with it. That it ended up being more expensive after the Tea Act didn’t even matter.
However, what the Tea Act did was cause fear that the East India Company would be able to invoke a monopoly, which would have wide ranging impacts, from ruining colonial merchants, to putting a noose around the average customer. The fear was that the Tea Act had the possibility of creating a monster that couldn’t be controlled.
In protest, the Sons of Liberty boarded the docked ships in the Boston harbor, and proceeded to throw 342 chests of tea into the water. For three hours, more than 100 colonists would take the time to break open each chest, and throw the more than 45 tons of tea into the harbor, while British armed ships looked on.
The response to the Boston Tea Party was quite varied. John Adams was thrilled when he heard about it. But others, such as George Washington, disapproved of the act. Benjamin Franklin would go so far as to insist that the British East India Company be reimbursed, and offered to pay for the loss himself. With many of the colonist leaders having been against what happened during the Boston Tea Party, participants refused to ever reveal their identities, being fearful that even after American independence, they could still have faced charges by the new American government.
On the part of the British, the Coercive Acts, which would come to be known as the Intolerable Acts, would be passed as a form of retribution. A second Boston Tea Party would follow in protest in March of 1774, where around 30 chests of tea were dumped into the harbor. Such protests would then spread to Maryland, New York and South Carolina.
The colonies were on a direct path to war, and as a sign of rebellion, tea began to be boycotted. Tea would be seen as the drink of the enemy, and coffee was right there to take it’s place.
Coffee Houses as Political Machines
With tea on the sidelines, coffee became the obvious go to. Part of the draw towards coffee was that it already had a place in the political discussion surrounding revolution. Coffee houses had long been homes to revolutions, so for a forming country, it was a natural connection.
Coffee also had somewhat of an anti-British Monarchy feel to it. While British culture had been very hierarchical, coffee houses were an equalizer. To get a good cup of coffee, you’d frequent your local coffee house, where you’d be able to fraternize with people of many different social classes. Inside, tables would be covered with newspapers and pamphlets, which would be discussed and at times, it would lead to the news even being written. So important were coffee houses that by the 18th century, they were helping to fuel the new industry.
This sort of gathering would so anger King Charles II that he would wage a sort of war against coffee houses. He declared they were evil and spread false news. Charles would go so far as to dispatch spies to coffee houses, and even tried to ban them.
The attempt to ban coffee houses would just help them explode, and some would begin to call them penny universities. As for the cost of a cup of coffee, you could belong to an establishment where intellection discussions were being held, and sober debates were being had.
These ideas would pass over to the colonies, and with Revolution on the horizon, coffee houses became ever more important. Not only did coffee become patriotic, those same coffee houses became the centers for meetings that would discuss the colonies future. After all, those coffee houses welcomed all, and for a foundling nation to emerge, they would need all the help they could get.
As Revolution continued to loom ever closer, coffee would become increasingly important. On July 6th, 1774, John Adams would write his wife,
“I believe I forgot to tell you one Anecdote: When I first came to this House it was late in the Afternoon, and I had ridden 35 miles at least. ‘Madam’ said I to Mrs. Huston, ‘is it lawfull for a weary Traveller to refresh himself with a Dish of Tea provided it has been honestly smuggled, or paid no Duties?’
‘No sir, said she, we have renounced all Tea in this Place. I cant make Tea, but I’le make you Coffee.’ Accordingly I have drank Coffee every Afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner, the better.”
Through the war, coffee would take on a special significance, as it was another symbol of shedding British power. Tea was only fit for the loyalists of the Crown, while coffee was free of any British economic interests. It was an American drink for Americans.
After the Revolutionary War, drinking tea no longer made one a pariah, so it’s popularity once again returned. Part of it was because tea, in part, was now coming in directly from China. More so though, the new Americans continued to look at Britain for cultural trends. After all, there were still deep ties between the two.
But coffee had gained a foothold, and along the east coast, coffee houses would thrive. It would be where merchants, and for the most part, men, would discuss business and current issues. Coffee’s big issue though remained that it was more expensive, and it wasn’t easily accessible. Tea could be easily brewed at home, while coffee would require the whole bean to be first roasted, then ground in a mortar and pestle, and then finally brewed, with the hope that it wouldn’t be tarnished during any of the processes.
Wars would once again bring coffee to the forefront though. First, the War of 1812 saw Americans being cut off from a large portion of the tea trade, as well a rejection of what was once again seen as a sign of Britain, which led to an increase in coffee consumption.
Civil War Clinching it for Coffee
One big upside to tea was that it could easily be brewed at home. When it came to coffee, you’d have to roast the beans yourself, which could prove to be a good bit of trouble. It was exceptionally easy to burn the beans, which would ruin the coffee.
But that all began to change in 1833. The first large scale coffee roaster arrived in the United States, having been imported from Britain. And it came at the right time. Just the prior year, the U.S. Army had made a significant change in their rations. President Andrew Jackson was getting rid of rum and brandy, and substituting them for coffee and sugar.
Coffee importation rose from 12 million pounds a year to over 38 million pounds. By 1845, New York City would be roasting as much coffee per year as all of Britain. Coffee would follow the rush out to goldfields in California, which would set the stage for James Folgers, only 14 years old at the time, to leave his home in Massachusetts and travel out west. He’d meet William Bovee, and help him set up Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills, which eventually became James A. Folger Company.
Then, everything would change. At 4:30 a.m., on April 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The country was torn into two, as the Civil War began. At the time, over 182 million pounds of coffee were being imported into the country, with New Orleans having been the second largest importer in the states.
Wanting to prevent a full out war, and to reunite the Union, President Abraham Lincoln issued a blockade on April 19th. What was once a staple for southern now became a luxury, as a pound of coffee went from $1.20 a pound upwards of $250 a pound.
For soldiers, coffee had become incredibly important, having become the alternative to alcohol consumption. It helped them push through difficult situations, while staying fueled and focused. Possibly more importantly, coffee had also been a healthy way to stay hydrated, as it required boiling one’s water first.
The lack of coffee would soon lower the morale of Confederate soldiers, who would instead replace it with anything they could, including chicory, acorns, dandelions, rye, peanuts and even peas. So important was coffee that the word itself would appear more times in Civil War soldiers’ diaries and letters home than words such as war or Lincoln.
At least twice, as mentioned in soldier diaries, the desire for coffee would even halt battles as physical truces were put into place so that Confederate soldiers could trade tobacco to Union soldiers for coffee. For those in the Confederate states, coffee had become a luxury, a luxury many desperately wanted and was often impossible to come by.
After the war, as the country moved to a new normal, coffee had gained a new importance. For the south, they could once again get their hands on the drink. For the north, former soldiers would bring the drink home with them, and with that, its popularity began to explode as veterans kept right on drinking it.