Coffeehouses and Stockjobbers

Coffee Series

Jonathan's Coffeehouse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan's_Coffee-House

Jonathan's Coffee-House in Change Alley [Exchange Alley] is famous as the original site of the London Stock Exchange. The Coffee-House was founded by Jonathan Miles, in Exchange Alley, around 1680. In 1696, several patrons were implicated in a plot to assassinate William III, and it was thought to be associated with the Popish Plots. It was the scene of a number of critical events in the history of share trading, including the South Sea Bubble and the panic of 1745.

Change Alley – Exchange Alley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_Alley,_London

Exchange Alley or Change Alley is a narrow alleyway connecting shops and coffeehouses in an old neighborhood of the City of London in England, bounded by Lombard Street, Cornhill and Birchin Lane. It served as a convenient shortcut from the Royal Exchange to the Post Office. The coffee houses of Exchange Alley, especially Jonathan's and Garraway's, became an early venue for the lively trading of stocks and commodities. These activities were the progenitor of the London Stock Exchange. Similarly, Edward Lloyd's coffee house, at 16 Lombard Street, was the forerunner of Lloyd's of London.

A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss, 2000, Excerpts

“If its stock-jobbery you wish to discuss, I can think of no better place than Jonathan’s Coffeehouse, the very heart and world of Change Alley.” I then made my way to Jonathan’s Coffeehouse, where I was determined to spend a few hours among the engineers of the London financial markets. If I was to understand their intrigues, I reasoned, it was necessary I gain a better feel for stock-jobbers. I took a seat at a table, called for a cup of coffee, and began leafing through the papers of the day.

I listened to men shout at one another across the room, debating the merits of this issue or that. Voices cried out to buy.  Voices cried out to sell. I could hear arguments conducted in every living language and at least one dead one. There was something truly infectious about the exuberance of this place where momentous events were always about to happen, a fortune was always about to be made or lost. I had been in many a coffeehouse before where men argued about writers or actresses or politics with unbridled vehemence. Here men argued about their fortunes, and the results of their arguments produced wealth or poverty, notoriety or infamy. The stock-jobber’s coffeehouse turned arguments into wealth, words into power, and ideas into truth – or something that strangely looked like truth. I felt myself to be in a strange and alien land ruled not by the strong but by the cunning and the lucky. 

Lloyd's Atrium

Coffee, Europe, and Penny Universities

Coffee Series

Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast, 1999, Excerpts

Europeans took to coffee with a passion. In the first half of the seventeenth century, coffee was still an exotic beverage, and like other such rare substances as sugar, cocoa, and tea, initially was used primarily as an expensive medicine by the upper classes. Over the next fifty years, however, Europeans were to discover the social as well as medicinal benefits of the Arabian drink.

In 1710, rather than boiling coffee, the French first made it the infusion method, with powdered coffee suspended in a cloth bag over which boiling water was poured. Coffee arrived in Vienna a bit later than in France. In the 1700s, coffee practically fueled the intellectual life of the city.

Nowhere did coffee have such a dynamic and immediate impact as in England. Coffee and coffeehouses took London by storm. Like a liquid torrent the coffee rage drenched England, beginning at Oxford University in 1650, where Jacobs, a Lebanese Jew, opened the first coffeehouse.

By 1700 there were more than two thousand London coffeehouses, occupying more premises and paying more rent than any other trade. They came to be known as ‘penny universities,’ because for that price one could purchase a cup of coffee and sit for hours listening to extraordinary conversations. Each coffeehouse specialized in a different type of clientele. In one, physicians could be consulted. Others served Protestants, Puritans, Catholics, Jews, literati, merchants, traders, fops, Whigs Tories, army officers, actors, lawyers, clergy, or wits. The coffeehouses provided England’s first egalitarian meeting place, where a man was expected to chat with his tablemates whether he knew them or not.

Coffee Attributes

Coffee Series

Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast, 1999, Excerpts

Coffee experts talk about four basic components that blend to create the perfect cup: aroma, body, acidity, and flavor.

Coffee is an extraordinarily delicate commodity. Its quality is first determined by essentials such as type of plant, soil conditions, and growing altitude. It can be ruined at every step along the line, from fertilizer and pesticide application to harvesting methods to processing to shipping to roasting to packaging to brewing. A coffee bean greedily absorbs odors and flavors from a host of nauseating companions. Too much moisture produces mold. A too-light roast produces undeveloped, bitter coffee, while over roasted coffee resembles charcoal. After roasting, the beans stale quickly unless used within a week or so. Boiling or sitting on a hot plate quickly reduces the finest brew to a stale, bitter, mouth-turning cup of black bile. In addition, it can be adulterated with an astonishing array of vegetable matter, ranging from chicory to figs.

No One You Know by Michelle Richmond, 2008, Excerpt

During my year as a cupper, the journal had traveled around the world with me – Ethiopia, Yemen, Uganda, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Java, New Guinea. It was filled with detailed notes on aroma and body, acidity and balance. The word associated with cupping were as varied as the coffees, and I found comfort in their simple, precise poetry: a taste described as sweet could be further broken down into piquant, nippy, mild, or delicate, while a sour-tasting coffee was acrid, hard, tart, or tangy. Aromas were dry, sugary, or enzymatic, the latter of which could be further described as flowery, fruity, or herby. A flowery aroma was either floral or fragrant, a fruity aroma was either citrusy or berrylike, and an herby aroma was alliaceous or leguminous. Most people sipping their morning java wouldn’t identify the aromas of onion, garlic, cucumber, or garden peas that characterized the herby coffees, or the cedar and pepper aromas in a spicy coffee of the warming variety – but to me a major part of the joy in drinking a cup of coffee came from noticing these subtle variations.

Coffee taster's tongue worth £10m

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7932090.stm

09 Mar 2009

"The taste buds of a Master of Coffee are as important as the vocal cords of a singer or the legs of a top model, and this is one of the biggest single insurance policies taken out for one person," said a spokesman for Lloyd's broker Glencairn Limited, which arranged the insurance cover. "In my profession my taste buds and sensory skills are crucial and allow me to distinguish any defects," said Mr Pelliccia.