The third wave of coffee is on its way

Highlander taking a cup in company with a Sikh in India. Invented in Scotland in 1876 it was the drink on which the sun never set. Its slogan (unlike today’s baristas’) was “Ready aye ready”.

It is perhaps only honest to admit that Camp was only coffee up to a point, and that point was four per cent. It was 26 per cent chicory essence and the rest was water and sugar. The description on the bottle has changed (presumably at the bidding of some bureaucrat – possibly a Eurocrat) from Coffee with Chicory to Chicory and Coffee Essence. But none the worse for that.

This is not to say I wasn’t as excited as the next teenager by the arrival in 1950s Britain of the Gaggia espresso machine, an Italian import at least as sexy as the jukebox. Coffee bars were where it was at (without the 2i’s coffee bar in Soho there might have been no Cliff Richard).

But we Britons are not Gianniscome-lately. Our first coffee house was set up in Oxford in 1622. By 1675 there were more than 3,000 coffee houses in England. Men of all sorts and conditions mingled there. Some were places for intellectual discussion and political debate. Say what you like about coffee, it’s a better brain-drink than beer. Today coffee and keyboards go together – order the latte and open the laptop.

In the 17th century Charles II tried to close London’s coffee houses, regarding them as “places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers”.

Let us hope there is no such intervention from Charles III when he comes to the throne, though I suppose he might command that the beans should be organic.