COFFEE. ' 105 



Shems and Hekin, in the year 1554, each of whom 

 opened a public coffee-house in that city. These coffee- 

 houses becoming a rendezvous for newsmongers, who 

 made too free with state-affairs, were suppressed by Cu- 

 proli, the Grand Vizier. 



Rauwolfus, who was in the Levant in 1573, was the 

 first European author who made any mention of coffee ; 

 but the first who has particularly described it is Prosper 

 Alpinus, in his Medicina JEgyptiorum, 1591, and in his 

 History of Egyptian Plants, published at Venice in 

 1592. 



The Venetians seem to be the next who used coffee, 

 Pietro della Valle, a Venetian, writes from Constantino- 

 ple in 1615, informing his friend, that upon his return he 

 should bring him some coffee, which he believed was a 

 thing unknown in his country. This beverage was 

 noticed by two English travellers at the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century : Biddulph about 1603, and William 

 Finch in 1607. The former says, " the Turks have for 

 their most common drink Coffa, which is a black kind of 

 drink, made of a kind of pulse like peas, called Coava." 

 The latter observes, " that the people in the island of 

 Socotora have, for their best entertainment, a China dish 

 Coko, a black bitterish drink, made of a berry like a bay- 

 berry, brought from Mecca, supped off hot." 



Lord Chancellor Bacon mentions it in 1624 : he 

 says, " the Turks have a drink they call coffee, made 

 with boiling water from a berry reduced into powder, 

 which makes the water black as soot, and is of a pungent 

 and aromatic smell, and is drunk warm." 



M. La Roque, who published his journey into Arabia 

 Felix in 1715, contends that his father having been with 

 M. de la Haye, the French ambassador at Constantinople, 

 did, when he returned to Marseilles, in 1644, drink 

 coffee every day ; but the same author acknowledges 



