Coffee culture, a Caribbean perspective

Gus Franklyn-Bute

Update October 2021

Historically, coffee houses attracted elite patrons with a shared interest, such as brokers and artists. They were often called “penny universities” because, for a penny for a cup, you may engage in stimulating conversation. This was the birth of coffee culture and café society in the West.

Troubled spirit

I was so struck by the amazing likeness of a historic black and white film still to my friend Kathryn, that I became curious. A click led to West Indies Calling (1944), a short film of an episode of the BBC wartime radio series. The program was hosted by Una Marson and Learie Constantine and featured other West Indians like Carlton Fairweather and Ulric Cross, a bomber navigator from Trinidad, the subject of the film HERO: The Extraordinary Life & Times of Ulric Cross. The radio series highlighted notable contributions made by Caribbean and Commonwealth women and men to Britain during the war years. The video is featured on the British Black History Month website and is worth viewing.

Scanning the archive, another short film extract troubled my spirit. Coffee Houses and the Slave Trade graphically brought to mind a flood of imagery and emotions – recollections that fuelled a Caribbean perspective of the modern, global coffee culture. My faltering consciousness is an awakening of the lifestyles we lead in bustling cities like New York, Miami, London, Toronto, and bougie Caribbean hotspots in the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, and the like. This is cathartic. I write to remember. I remember to understand.

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Bitter-sweet aromas

In my school uniform of a spray-starched white shirt, school tie, and grey trousers, I remembered a dreaded school bus trip into the heart of London. I had long out-grown the trouser. Dad had “invisibly” patched a hole in the knee ripped during another playground incident (he was a master tailor). The hem was suspended so high above my shoes, the trouser had an identity crisis – a challenge for any painfully shy, self-conscious teen. For Vincentians in the know, the jokes about crossing Rabacca “Dry” River still echo to this day. 

The school trip was to Lloyd’s of London (Lloyd’s), the world’s insurance market, whose origins are attributed to an enterprising Edward Lloyd who operated a coffee shop in the 1680s. Lloyd’s and London as a global financial centre is yet another British empire legacy of international trade, slavery, maritime institutions, and commodities such as sugar and coffee.

Stumbling over the cold, cobbled pavements to Lombard Street, the site of Lloyd’s Coffee House, my young and lively imagination conjured a late-17th century room teeming with merchants, traders, and messengers. The air is choked with tobacco smoke, a concoction of bitter-sweet aromas, the allure of brewing coffee, and men with poor hygiene. A discord of voices is buying and selling my ancestors. The historic scene in my mind was all the more pertinent as the only black student in a classroom of others.

Birth of coffee culture

Free market enterprise isn’t news. As my imagery unfolded, London is peppered with coffee houses on corners, in alleys, and on main streets. By the mid-17th century, some 300 had opened as the coffee culture flourished. Elsewhere, in England, Austria, France, Holland, and Germany drinking coffee had become highly fashionable, en vogue, as coffee culture became the heart of the social scene. Coffee houses attracted elite patrons with a shared interest – shippers, brokers, and artists. They were often called “penny universities” because, for a penny for a cup, you may engage in stimulating conversation. This was the birth of coffee culture and café society in the West.

Three hundred years on, history has much to say about the Enlightenment, French and American revolution. Much too has been said about Britain’s emergence as a global power through conquest, control, the industrial revolution, two world wars, and more. Yet, coffee culture is alive and more expansive than ever. Our lifestyle of affordable luxury finds us scurrying into bougie cafés in East Village and Park Slope, New York; Covent Garden, Soho, and Spitalfields in London; Hastings and Haggatt Hall, Barbados; San Juan in Trinidad; or Cotton House in Mustique.

We huddle over iPads, smartphones, and laptops scanning for free WiFi to surf, Facebook, tweet, Instagram, and WhatsApp. My choice of brew changes with my mood, the weather, and if I am hustling. It varies between double espresso with a tad of cold milk, macchiato, or flat white. If I have a bounce in my step or looking for a sugar fix, a chai latte is the shout. Some time back, friend and actor/creator Keith Simpson Porter posted his cheeky preference: “A venti caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks… because top nutritionists say, you are what you eat.” Such is the effect of coffee culture in our lives.

Affordable luxury, international lifestyle

We are bombarded by luxury coffee blends from afield as Java, Kenya, and Jamaica’s Blue Mountain – places many of us may never visit. Our kitchens are adorned with sleek machines, cafetières, and designer crockery, collecting dust. Realtors advise infusing our homes with the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee when potential buyers come to view. A U.S. survey revealed that 69 percent of American coffee drinkers consider the beverage an “affordable luxury.”

Today’s coffee culture has evolved little since the New World era, in spite of democratised consumption and international lifestyles having accelerated with the advent of technology, advances in digital communication, and greater mobility of world citizens.

One penny a cup, bill paid

My spirit remains troubled, although I often revel in the luxury of lazing on Sundays over weekend papers at a pace I choose, at a place I choose. Over the years, my favourite spots have vacillated, for example, between a chesterfield sofa at a hideaway café off Bethnal Green Road, East London, and a shaded spot in the blazing Bajan sun in Rockley, Barbados. Keith’s caramel venti concoction costs a lot more than a penny, but the much larger bill has already been paid… well, sort of! You see, I remember the opening lines of my first essay as a spotty undergraduate. I remember, too, quoting historian James Walvin:

“the three beverages – coffee, chocolate, and tea – all had a naturally bitter taste – what made them palatable to Europeans was the sugar. And the invisible ingredient which placed these exotic goods on the tables throughout the western world was the toil of black slaves.”

In the late 17th century, some 18 million coffee trees thrived on the island of Martinique over a 50-year period. From this stock, plantations spread throughout the Caribbean, South, and Central America. For 100 years coffee created new wealth for nations. Fortunes were made and lost. Men and women bought and sold. Freedom captured and denied. Between 1511 and 1886 over 1 million slaves were imported into Cuba to cultivate coffee crops. Many of these business deals were insured by merchants in Lloyd’s Coffee House in London.

Today, coffee remains an important commodity with over 2.25 billion cups consumed daily. Poorer countries account for over 90 percent of production, while consumption mainly occurs in industrialized nations. It is reported that 25 million small producers around the world rely on coffee for a living, performing labour-intensive work, and its cultivation has widely been associated with child labour.

Invisible ingredient in affordable luxury

Naturally, the passage of time leads us away from our pasts. We readily forget the bloody price tag paid for the pleasure we have to luxuriate in freedom in the pursuit of our life’s passions. And if I was ever doubtful of the usefulness of events like Black History Month, I accept with certainty the importance of being reminded of our past, even if it was for one month in a year. Some argue against the relevance of Black History Month. For me, I’m thankful for Kathryn because the likeness of the video West Indies Calling (1944) celebrating the past, made me take a closer look at myself. I now pay closer attention to the coffee I buy as a conscious response to lessons learned. I ask questions about the origins of coffee, bananas, and other produce. I check labels and don’t hesitate to put things back. Choosing something as routine as the coffee shop we frequent and the blend of coffee we buy can positively impact the lives and livelihoods of the “invisible ingredient” that feeds our addiction to affordable luxuries.

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