Needless to say, this amazing proposal of the coffee-house masters to have the public write its own newspapers met with the scorn and the derision it invited, and nothing ever came of it.
The increasing demand for coffee caused the government tardily to seek to stimulate interest in the cultivation of the plant in British colonial possessions. It was tried out in Jamaica in 1730. By 1732 the experiment gave such promise that Parliament, "for encouraging the growth of coffee in His Majesty's plantations in America," reduced the inland duty on coffee coming from there, "but of none other," from two shillings to one shilling six pence per pound. "It seems that the French at Martinico, Hispaniola, and at the Isle de Bourbon, near Madagascar, had somewhat the start of the English in the new product as had also the Dutch at Surinam, yet none had hitherto been found to equal coffee from Arabia, whence all the rest of the world had theirs." Thus writes Adam Anderson in 1787, somewhat ungraciously seeking to damn England's business rivals with faint praise. Java coffee was even then in the lead, and the seeds of Bourbon-Santos were multiplying rapidly in Brazilian soil.
The British East India Company, however, was much more interested in tea than in coffee. Having lost out to the French and Dutch on the "little brown berry of Arabia," the company engaged in so lively a propaganda for "the cup that cheers" that, whereas the annual tea imports from 1700 to 1710 averaged 800,000 pounds, in 1721 more than 1,000,000 pounds of tea were brought in. In 1757, some 4,000,000 pounds were imported. And when the coffee house finally succumbed, tea, and not coffee, was firmly intrenched as the national drink of the English people.
A movement in 1873 to revive the coffee house in the form of a coffee "palace," designed to replace the public house as a place of resort for working men, caused the Edinburgh Castle to be opened in London. The movement attained considerable success throughout the British Isles, and even spread to the United States.
Evolution of the Club
Every profession, trade, class, and party had its favorite coffee house. "The bitter black drink called coffee," as Mr. Pepys described the beverage, brought together all sorts and conditions of men; and out of their mixed association there developed groups of patrons favoring particular houses and giving them character. It is easy to trace the transition of the group into a clique that later became a club, continuing for a time to meet at the coffee house or the chocolate house, but eventually demanding a house of its own.
Decline and Fall of the Coffee House
Starting as a forum for the commoner, "the coffee house soon became the plaything of the leisure class; and when the club was evolved, the coffee house began to retrograde to the level of the tavern. And so the eighteenth century, which saw the coffee house at the height of its power and popularity, witnessed also its decline and fall. It is said there were as many clubs at the end of the century as there were coffee houses at the beginning."
For a time, when the habit of reading newspapers descended the social ladder, the coffee house acquired a new lease of life. Sir Walter Besant observes:
They were then frequented by men who came, not to talk, but to read; the smaller tradesmen and the better class of mechanic now came to the coffee-house, called for a cup of coffee, and with it the daily paper, which they could not afford to take in. Every coffee-house took three or four papers; there seems to have been in this latter phase of the once social institution no general conversation. The coffee-house as a place of resort and conversation gradually declined; one can hardly say why, except that all human institutions do decay. Perhaps manners declined; the leaders in literature ceased to be seen there; the city clerk began to crowd in; the tavern and the club drew men from the coffee-house.