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Case 5: Coffee, Chocolate, Tea
Exhibition curator: Katie Sambrook
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| The leaves and beans of the cacao plant from: Sir Hans Sloane. A voyage to the islands Madera, Barbadoes, Nieves, St. Christophers, and Jamaica; with the natural history ... of the last of those islands. London: printed for the author, 1725. Vol. 2 [Rare Books Collection ESTC FOL. Sloane 1725] |
Sir Hans Sloane. A voyage to the islands Madera, Barbadoes, Nieves, St. Christophers, and Jamaica; with the natural history ... of the last of those islands. London: printed for the author, 1725. Vol. 2 [Rare Books Collection ESTC FOL. Sloane 1725]
Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) is best known today as one of the world's greatest collectors; after his death his library of books and manuscripts and his collections of artefacts and zoological, botanical and mineralogical specimens went to form the nucleus of the British Museum. A physician by training, he was a man of tireless energy and numerous interests and during his long life he held such offices as President of the Royal College of Physicians, Physician-in-Ordinary to George II and President of the Royal Society. Less well remembered today is his monumental study of the natural history of Jamaica, a copy of which is on display here, and his role in introducing milk chocolate to Britain.
Sloane experimented with chocolate while he was in Jamaica, mixing it with milk to produce a palatable hot drink. After his return to London in 1689 he gave his recipe to Nicholas Sanders, a chocolate-maker, and the commercial success of the hot chocolate drink, sold under the name "Sir Hans Sloane's Milk Chocolate" and advertised as being of medicinal benefit to consumptives, brought Sloane a considerable fortune. Theplate on display shows the leaves and beans of the cacao plant.
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Central American Indian with a chocolate pot and cup from: Philippe Sylvestre Dufour. Traitez nouveaux & curieux du café, du thé et du chocolate. La Haye [The Hague]: chez Adrian Moetjens, 1693. [Rare Books Collection TX815 Sy4] |
Philippe Sylvestre Dufour. Traitez nouveaux & curieux du café, du thé et du chocolate. La Haye [The Hague]: chez Adrian Moetjens, 1693. [Rare Books Collection TX815 Sy4]
Although their existence had been known to European travellers since at least the sixteenth century, it was only towards the end of the seventeenth century that the drinking of coffee, tea and chocolate became common in Europe. Dufour's book, which went through several editions, debates the medicinal benefits and drawbacks of consuming large quantities of coffee, chocolate and tea. Chocolate, he concludes, can cause a number of disorders, including, in women, "la couleur depravée du visage".The plate on display shows a Central American Indian with a chocolate pot and cup.
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| Title page of: James Douglas. Arbor Yemensis fructum cofè ferens, or, A description and history of the coffee tree. London: printed for Thomas Woodward, 1727[Rare Books Collection ESTC FOL. SB269 D7] |
James Douglas. Arbor Yemensis fructum cofè ferens, or, A description and history of the coffee tree. London: printed for Thomas Woodward, 1727[Rare Books Collection ESTC FOL. SB269 D7]
The first coffee-house in Britain was opened in 1651 and by 1675 there were 250 coffee-houses in London alone. The tremendous popularity of coffee as a drink and the coincidental development of botany as a formal discipline led to the publication of a number of studies of the coffee plant, of which James Douglas's work is typical. As well as describing the coffee plant in systematic detail, Douglas expresses optimism as to the future cultivation of coffee in England and recounts a number of successful attempts to grow coffee plants that had recently taken place in England and Holland.
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| Title page of: Joseph Hall. Virgidemiarum: satires in six books. Oxford: printed by R. Clements, 1753. [Rare Books Collection PR2283.H7 V8] |
Joseph Hall. Virgidemiarum: satires in six books. Oxford: printed by R. Clements, 1753. [Rare Books Collection PR2283.H7 V8]
Coffee houses did more than merely serve coffee. They became meeting-places, clubs, places of entertainment and for the transaction of business. Auctions were held in coffee houses and tickets for plays and balls could be bought there. Some coffee houses ran subscription libraries, others served as the editorial offices of newspapers and magazines. They became known as "penny universities". The book on display here, a copy of Joseph Hall's Virgidemiarum, bears inscriptions on the title page and fly-leaf indicating that it was from the subscription library of George's Coffee House, which was in Chancery Lane, only a few yards from the site of the Maughan Library.
David Crole. Tea: a textbook of tea planting and manufacture. London: Crosby, Lockwood and Son, 1897.[Early Science Collection SB271 CRO]
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| Advertisements from: David Crole. Tea: a textbook of tea planting and manufacture. London: Crosby, Lockwood and Son, 1897.[Early Science Collection SB271 CRO] |
Though initially less popular in Britain than coffee or chocolate, tea gained in popularity throughout the eighteenth century; by the 1730s import levels for tea outstripped those for coffee and by 1836 the East India Company was importing 49,000,000 lbs of tea per year. The cultivation and manufacture of tea became one of the most important economic activities of the British Empire and spawned a wealth of secondary industries to serve the needs of the tea planters and manufacturers. The advertisements at the back of Crole's Tea, covering such products as tea rollers and packing machines, pesticides, railway equipment for tea plantations, tea chests and trade journals and newspapers, give some indication of the size and importance the tea industry had acquired by the end of the nineteenth century.
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