5 fun facts from the history of coffee

Hewas puzzled by thetradition of Turkish men going to baths where coffee was served and also to cafes without women. At that time, it was believed that the food or drink you took could change your body quite a bit. So the ambassador assumed that coffee was the culprit for men getting together like this. He considered the members of these all-male clubs to be homosexuals. Even coffee was supposed to cause these changes in the body, i.e. the transformation of the male sex into the female.

Gentlemen, don't worry, it's never happened that coffee turned a man into a woman. For men, a useful interesting fact about coffee will definitely be that caffeine promotes male potency. This is evidenced by studies looking at caffeine intake in erectile dysfunction. It shows that2-3 cups of coffee a day reduce the likelihood of erectile dysfunction. This affects about 44% of men over the age of 40.

IMPOTENT INTELLECTUALS IN COFFEE SHOPS

Let's move on from the Turkish coffee houses for about a century. Coffee has found its place among European intellectuals. In the 17th century, it was a problem to supply good quality waterto the cities . Therefore, rather than drink polluted water, people drank beer. Drunkenness was the norm. Then came coffee - a delicious drink that encouraged creativity and thought. Coffee is said to be behind the French Revolution.

Businessmen, politicians, philosophers and artists were popular for its stimulating effects. Men wouldmeet over a cup of coffee to discuss what was happening in society, share ideas and arrange business. Of course, in those days, important meetings were not allowed to disturb women. So coffee shops became an exclusively male affair.

And that led, as in the first case, to fictional theories about coffee. This time it was women who spoke out against coffee. Not surprisingly. Women complained that men had no time for them because they spent it in cafes. When they get home they don't even have sexual interest in their wives.

London women in 1663 even wrote their dissatisfaction down as: The Maiden's Complaint Against the Coffee House. And a year later, they published TheWomen's Petition Against the Coffee House. Some passages from this petition of angry women will amuse you.

"...the excessive use of that novel, abominable, heathen liquor called coffee...has so paralyzed our kindly men that they are as impotent as old age and as barren as the deserts..."

The petition didn't help the women much either. Soon men had their mail and newspapers delivered to the cafes as well. They basically lived in the cafes. Thenumber of men gathered made the cafés a strategic location for brothels. The men had coffee in the café, discussed business, handled the mail, and paid for ladies' company one floor up. Which, unlike the coffee vilified by women, was the real reason for the decline in their interest in their own wives.