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History · Culture

Coffeehouses from Mecca to Europe

How the coffeehouse spread from Sufi circles in Yemen to Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul, then to Oxford, London, Vienna and Leipzig, and which of the famous dates and stories are documented.

Across the chain: History · Cafés & retail

Source-checked· Prepared with AI assistance· 12 sources (7 tier A)· 4 contested· Updated 21 Oct 2026
Reading depth
Contents
  • Sufi communities in Yemen used coffee in their devotions by the 15th century, according to historians; the earliest reliable text on coffee dates from 1587–88.1,2
  • The first recorded opposition to coffee came in Mecca in 1511. Coffeehouses appear in records of Mecca and Cairo in the 1510s.1,4
  • Istanbul’s first coffeehouse opened in 1554; Ottoman authorities banned coffeehouses repeatedly until the late 17th century.1,4
  • England’s first coffeehouses are dated to about 1650 in Oxford and 1652 in London, but neither date is documented; Pasqua Rosée was trading in London by 1656.7
  • That coffeehouses created a new “public sphere” is an interpretation, not a finding. Historians still debate it.7,8

From Sufi devotions to the first coffeehouses#

The coffeehouse began in the Islamic world, not in Europe. Coffee was known in Yemen by the 15th century, according to a 2026 study.1 It became popular among Sufi communities, who valued its stimulating effect in their devotions.1 Historians describe groups of mystics in Yemen drinking it around the mid-15th century.2,3

According to a historian of coffee, the first drink was made from dried coffee husks. The Sufis called it qishr.3 Once religious authorities judged it not intoxicating, it moved from ritual into social life.3 How coffee is prepared in Ethiopia, where the plant grows wild, is covered in The Ethiopian coffee ceremony.

From Yemen the drink travelled north. Coffeehouses appear in records of Mecca and Cairo in the 1510s.4 In Cairo, a review of the standard history notes communities of Yemeni merchants as early users.2 The earliest reliable text on coffee was written by ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jazīrī in 1587–88.1 Much of what is known about the early decades comes from later accounts like his.

Opposition in Mecca and the Ottoman bans#

The first recorded opposition to coffee came in Mecca in 1511.1 The governor saw people drinking coffee and called an assembly to judge whether it was lawful.1 Two Persian brothers, with some medical knowledge, argued that coffee harmed health.1 The assembly then forbade coffee, under the same ban as alcohol.1

The story grew in the retelling. One review speaks of a staged trial and coffee burned in the streets.2 A coffee textbook chapter says the sultan in Cairo later had the two physicians executed.5 The 1511 assembly is documented; such details differ between accounts and are best treated as retold (see Contested).

The bans did not hold. Around 1543 Sultan Süleyman I ordered merchants in Mecca to stop trading coffee; the order was obeyed at first and soon ignored.1 Bans had to be repeated several times.1 According to a 2011 study, a decree against coffeehouses in Bursa had to be reissued in 1578.4 The repeated bans were lifted entirely in the late 17th century.4

The reasons were religious, moral and political. Critics compared coffee to wine.1 Religious leaders saw coffeehouses as rivals that drew people away from places of worship.1 Officials linked them with gambling and other forbidden activities.1,4 They also became places of political talk, which worried rulers.1

Istanbul and the Ottoman coffeehouse#

Istanbul’s first coffeehouse opened in 1554.1,12 Two men from Aleppo and Damascus started the trade, and coffeehouses then multiplied quickly.1,4 The Ottoman historian Peçevi, writing about 1635, dates it to the Islamic year 962 (1554–55) and places it near the port market.12 He reports that a dish of coffee cost one asper, which an 18th-century English writer reckoned at less than a halfpenny.12 They spread across the city and into small towns in Anatolia.4

The coffeehouse became an institution of its own. Customers listened to music and storytellers, watched shadow puppet shows, and played chess and backgammon.4 They also shared news and rumours about the government.4 According to a historian, guests were seated in order of arrival rather than by rank.3 The UNESCO listing of Turkish coffee culture still describes coffeehouses as places to talk, share news and read.6 How Turkish coffee is brewed is covered in Coffee drinks around the world.

Coffee reaches Europe#

According to a historian’s chapter, Turkish merchants brought coffee to Venice in the late 16th century. In the first half of the 17th century apothecaries seem to have sold it as a medicine.3 The same chapter places the first European coffeehouses in London in the 1650s, not on the mainland.3 No source opened for this entry dates a coffeehouse in Venice.

England’s first dates are less firm than often told. Many authorities say public coffee-selling began in Oxford in 1650.7 The only evidence is a note by the antiquary Anthony Wood: Jacob, a Jew, opened a coffeehouse at the Angel.7 Wood wrote the note in 1671, and its editor dated it only by conjecture, to March 1650/51.7

In London, antiquarians agree that Pasqua Rosée first sold coffee in St Michael’s Alley in 1652. No direct evidence for that year has been found.7 Parish registers show him there, with his partner Christopher Bowman, by mid-1656.7 According to the antiquarians, Rosée came from the Levantine community of Smyrna (Izmir), a port with at least forty coffeehouses in a register of 1657–58.7 Two Levant Company merchants, Daniel Edwards and his father-in-law Thomas Hodges, set him up in the trade; as a merchant of that company, Edwards could not keep a shop himself.7 The earliest mention of Rosée’s name in contemporary records is a parish tax allowance for 1656.7 A later account says he then left, and Bowman carried on the business.7 The house burned in the Great Fire of 1666.7

Mediterranean SeaRed SeaBlack SeaAtlantic OceanYemenSufi devotions, 15th c. 1,2 1Meccaopposition, 1511 1 2Cairoin records, 1510s 4 3Istanbulfirst coffeehouse, 1554 1,12 4Venicecoffee, late 16th c. 3 5Izmir (Smyrna)Rosée’s community 7 6Oxford1650 or 1651, claimed 7 7London1652 claimed, by 1656 7 8Viennalate 17th c. 10 9Leipzigcoffee served, 1711 11 10movement of coffee or people named in a sourcelink named in a source, route not describedPlaces at their real positions; numbers follow the first date given. Land: Natural Earth.
  1. Yemen. Sufi communities use coffee in their devotions by the 15th century.1,2
  2. Mecca. First recorded opposition to coffee, 1511.1
  3. Cairo. Coffeehouses appear in records in the 1510s, as in Mecca.4
  4. Istanbul. First coffeehouse, 1554, opened by two men from Aleppo and Damascus.1,4
  5. Venice. Coffee arrives with Turkish merchants in the late 16th century, according to a historian; no coffeehouse date found.3
  6. Izmir (Smyrna). Pasqua Rosée’s home community, with at least forty coffeehouses.7
  7. Oxford. Jacob at the Angel, claimed for 1650 or 1651.7
  8. London. Rosée, claimed for 1652; documented by 1656.7
  9. Vienna. First coffeehouse in the late 17th century, linked by the source to the Ottoman siege.10
  10. Leipzig. Coffee served at the Coffe Baum since 1711.11
How coffee drinking and the coffeehouse moved from Yemen to European cities, numbered by the first date the sources give. Solid lines: a movement of coffee or people named in a source; dotted: a link named without a route. Places are at their real positions; the curved paths show links, not travelled routes. Land outlines: Natural Earth.1,2,3,4,7,10,11

Vienna, Paris, Leipzig and the London trade#

London’s coffeehouses survived the return of the monarchy and several attempts to close them, according to a historian’s chapter.3 Traders met there to do business; the same chapter states that Lloyd’s began in a coffeehouse.3 An academic review of a 2005 history notes their role as “penny universities”.8 The name refers to the price of a dish of coffee that bought entry to the talk.3 A French visitor in 1698 wrote that news, a fire and a dish of coffee cost a penny.12 By 1708 there were, by one estimate, as many as five or six hundred coffeehouses in London and Westminster alone.12

In Paris the café emerged in the late 17th century, according to the same historian. Unlike the English coffeehouse, it served alcohol as well as coffee.3

Vienna’s coffeehouse history began towards the end of the 17th century. Austria’s heritage inventory links it closely to the Ottoman siege of the city.10 It names the founder of the first coffeehouse as Deodato, an Armenian spy whom the court had trusted with preparing coffee.10 In 1720 the Kramer coffeehouse on the Graben was the first to provide newspapers.10 The Viennese coffeehouse as a living culture is described in Coffee drinks around the world.

In Leipzig, the house Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum has served coffee since 1711, according to the city museum that runs it.11 No academic source on the first coffeehouses in Switzerland was opened for this entry. Switzerland’s later role in the coffee trade is covered in Switzerland and the coffee trade.

The coffeehouses of the 19th to 21st centuries, from espresso bars to the specialty “waves”, are covered in Eras and waves of coffee.

Documented, claimed and retold#

The written record for the first coffeehouses is thin and mostly late. A 2026 study warns that any date for coffee’s introduction should be treated with caution, because contemporary sources are scarce.1 The earliest reliable text on coffee is al-Jazīrī’s, dated 996 AH (1587–88).1 Events of the 1510s therefore reach us mostly through writers working decades later.

Coffearium sorts the claims into three levels. Documented means a dated record or a peer-reviewed study that rests on one: the Mecca assembly of 1511, Istanbul’s coffeehouses from 1554, and Rosée in the London parish registers by 1656.1,4,7 Claimed means a date widely repeated without a primary record, such as Oxford 1650 and London 1652.7 Retold means story details that change from one account to the next, such as who was punished after the Mecca assembly.1,2,5

The same caution applies to the Oxford note. Wood’s earliest diary, written up to the end of 1659, records coffee drunk in private in Oxford in 1650 and dates its public sale near the Angel to between August 1654 and April 1655.7 The note on Jacob was written later, in 1671.7 Both readings are given in Contested.

Some stories about European firsts could not be checked. No source opened for this entry dates the first coffeehouse in Venice or gives the year of Deodato’s Viennese coffeehouse. The founding legends told about the Ottoman siege of Vienna, such as the Kulczycki story, were not examined in a historical study opened for this entry. Those dates and legends are left out here.

Reference dates#

City Event Year in the source Evidence level Source
Yemen Sufi communities drink coffee 15th century Documented, with a caution on exact dates 1,2
Mecca First recorded opposition; assembly forbids coffee 1511 (917 AH) Documented 1
Mecca, Cairo Coffeehouses appear in records 1510s Documented 4
Mecca Süleyman I forbids coffee trading ≈1543 (950 AH) Documented 1
Istanbul First coffeehouse 1554; “early 1550s” Documented 1,4
Bursa Decree against coffeehouses reissued 1578 Documented 4
Ottoman Empire Bans lifted entirely Late 17th century Documented 4
Yemen, Mecca Al-Jazīrī’s treatise on coffee 1587–88 (996 AH) Documented 1
Oxford Jacob opens a coffeehouse at the Angel 1650 or 1651 Claimed; note dated by conjecture 7
London Rosée sells coffee in St Michael’s Alley 1652 Claimed; no direct evidence 7
London Rosée and Bowman in the parish registers By mid-1656 Documented 7
London Coffeehouse destroyed in the Great Fire 1666 Documented 7
Vienna First coffeehouse, founded by Deodato Late 17th century Recorded in the national inventory, without sources 10
Vienna First coffeehouse with newspapers 1720 Recorded in the national inventory 10
Leipzig Coffee served at the Coffe Baum Since 1711 Stated by the city museum 11
150015501600165017001750yearHollow marks: claimed, not documented.Mecca – oppositionrecorded15111 Mecca and Cairo –coffeehouses1510s4 Istanbul – firstcoffeehouse15541 Oxford – Jacob (claimed)1650 or 1651, contested7 London – Rosée (claimed)1652, unproven7 London – Rosée (registers)by 16567 Vienna – first coffeehouselate 17th c.10 Leipzig – Coffe Baum171111
Data table
PointyearSource
Mecca – opposition recorded151115111
Mecca and Cairo – coffeehouses1510s1510–15194
Istanbul – first coffeehouse155415541
Oxford – Jacob (claimed)1650 or 1651, contested16507
London – Rosée (claimed)1652, unproven16527
London – Rosée (registers)by 165616567
Vienna – first coffeehouselate 17th c.1670–170010
Leipzig – Coffe Baum1711171111
First documented coffeehouses and related records by city, at the year each source gives. Hollow marks are claimed dates without a primary record; the late 17th century is drawn as 1670–1700.1,4,7,10,11

Why authorities opposed coffeehouses#

The Ottoman case shows the pattern most clearly. Critics compared coffee to wine and argued that its stimulating effect broke Islamic law and harmed health.1 Officials described coffeehouses as breeding grounds for gambling and for social and sexual contact they considered improper.1 The 1578 decree to the governor of Bursa called coffeehouses “the gathering place for the sinful”.4

Repetition was the rule. A 2026 study reads the repeated bans as evidence that consumers did not obey them.1 A 1998 review of the standard history stresses that a fatwa, a legal opinion, is not a state edict; the state may or may not act on it.2 The record shows repeated bans meeting a persistent habit, not one prohibition followed by acceptance.1,4

In London, attempts to close the coffeehouses also failed, according to a historian’s chapter.3 A royal proclamation against London coffeehouses is often mentioned; no source opened for this entry gives its text or date, so it is not detailed here.

The public-sphere debate#

Historians have read the coffeehouse as the birthplace of a new kind of public. In Jürgen Habermas’s account, the English coffeehouse is a constitutive element of the bourgeois “public sphere”.7 A journal article on the Viennese coffeehouse summarises the thesis: the coffeehouse became a place of discursive bourgeois public life in early 18th-century England.9

Two lines of research complicate the thesis. A 2011 study proposes that the Ottoman coffeehouse, which it calls the original source of the 18th-century British coffeehouse, formed an Ottoman public sphere.4 The same study argues that the Ottoman coffeehouse customer was not the rational subject of Habermas’s Enlightenment model.4 A 2005 history of the British coffeehouse treats Habermas as its main opponent, according to an academic review.8

Its author argues that every era has its consumer revolutions and public spaces. He stresses that coffeehouse audiences were varied and that exclusion made them less public than they appear.8 He gives a leading role to the virtuosi, gentlemen curious about new learning.8,3 In his response to the review, he adds that merchants and retailers also shaped how coffee was received.8 The same historian of the London coffeehouse points to its limits. Women were not formally barred, but the coffeehouse made their presence as customers uncomfortable or untenable; most women there were serving staff, and some houses were owned by women, especially widows.12 The equality of the coffeehouse applied only among its customers.12 Coffearium reports the public-sphere thesis as an interpretation, not as an established fact.

The “penny university” image belongs to the same debate. A historian notes that Oldenburg, in a late-20th-century plea for community places, held up the London coffeehouse as a model “third place”.3 Starbucks later described its stores in the same “third place” language (see Eras and waves of coffee).3

Open questions#

  • Exact dates in Yemen and Mecca. Contemporary sources are scarce, and the main narratives were written decades later.1
  • The first English coffeehouse. No primary record confirms Oxford 1650/51 or London 1652; Rosée is documented only from 1656.7
  • Rosée’s origin. The sources opened call him Greek or Armenian (see Contested).3,7,12
  • Vienna’s founding year and stories. The national inventory names Deodato and the late 17th century but gives no year or sources.10
  • Early Swiss coffeehouses. No academic source on them was opened for this entry.

Key studies#

Björn, 2026 – On the properties and benefits of coffee. An edition and study of a 16th-century Arabic treatise on coffee. Its introduction sets out what is recorded about coffee in Yemen, the Mecca assembly of 1511, the first Istanbul coffeehouse and the reasons given for later bans, and warns against trusting exact early dates.

Orientalia Suecana 75, 1–20 · doi:10.33063/os.v75.671

Karababa and Ger, 2011 – Early modern Ottoman coffeehouse culture. A historical study of Ottoman coffeehouses from the 1550s onwards. It describes what people did in coffeehouses and how authorities tried to ban them, and argues that they formed an Ottoman public sphere.

Journal of Consumer Research 37(5) · doi:10.1086/656422

Ellis, 2004 – Pasqua Rosee’s coffee-house, 1652–1666. An archival study of London’s first coffeehouse. It shows that the famous 1652 date and the Oxford claim for 1650 rest on later reports, and finds Rosée in the parish registers by 1656.

The London Journal 29(1), 1–24 · doi:10.1179/ldn.2004.29.1.1

Ellis, 2008 – An introduction to the coffee-house. A short history of the coffeehouse in Istanbul and London, followed by a reading of coffeehouse conversation. It describes the open debate of the London houses and the limits on who could take part, above all women.

Language & Communication 28, 156–164 · doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2008.01.004

Morris, 2017 – We consumers: tastes, rituals and waves. A historian traces coffee drinking from Sufi circles in Yemen through Ottoman coffeehouses to London and Paris. He explains why London, with weak guilds after the Civil War, had coffeehouses before mainland Europe.

In: Folmer (ed.), The Craft and Science of Coffee, ch. 19 · doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00019-0

Contested
  • Oxford or London first: many authorities date public coffee-selling in Oxford to 1650, from Anthony Wood’s note on Jacob at the Angel, but the note is only conjecturally dated to March 1650/51 and Wood’s earlier diary, written up to 1659, dates public sale in Oxford to between August 1654 and April 1655; the 1652 London date for Pasqua Rosée is agreed by antiquarians, but parish registers place him in St Michael’s Alley only by mid-1656.7
  • Pasqua Rosée’s origin: a 17th-century account quoted by a historian of the coffeehouse calls him “a Greek Servant” brought from Smyrna (Izmir)7, and a later article by the same historian calls him Greek Orthodox12; a historian’s textbook chapter calls him an Armenian who grew up in Smyrna.3
  • What happened after the Mecca assembly of 1511: a 2026 study reports that the assembly forbade coffee, on the advice of two Persian brothers who called it harmful1; a review of the standard 1985 history describes a staged trial after which coffee was burned in the streets2; a coffee textbook chapter, citing a 1987 history, says the sultan in Cairo ordered the two physicians executed.5
  • The coffeehouse and the public sphere: Habermas’s account makes the English coffeehouse a constitutive element of a new public sphere7,9; a 2011 study proposes an earlier Ottoman public sphere formed in coffeehouses4; a 2005 history of the British coffeehouse argues that coffeehouses were less public than they appear and that the European bourgeoisie need not be privileged, as summarised in an academic review.8
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Change log

  • – Checked the English section against Ellis (2004) in full; Rosée’s Smyrna origin is now attributed to the antiquarians, the Oxford diary dates are corrected, and Ellis (2008) is added as a source. Reason: Ellis (2004) attributes Rosée’s origin to later antiquarian accounts and dates both Oxford readings from Wood’s own records.
  • – Removed “Tahtakale district” from the Istanbul quick fact. Reason: Neither cited source (Björn 2026, Karababa and Ger 2011) names the district.
  • – Removed the unsourced “1670s” date for the royal proclamation against London coffeehouses. Reason: No opened source gives the proclamation or its date.
  • – Route diagram – the Cairo to Istanbul link is now dashed (route not described). Reason: The sources name men from Aleppo and Damascus as Istanbul’s first coffeehouse keepers; none describes a route from Cairo.

Sources

  1. ABjörn, J. (2026). On the Properties and Benefits of Coffee: Attributed to Muḥammad Badr al-Dīn al-Qūṣūnī. Orientalia Suecana 75, 1–20 (Uppsala University). doi:10.33063/os.v75.671 · other copies
  2. BKeall, E. J. (1998). Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (review). Material Culture Review 47(1) (formerly Material History Review).
  3. BMorris, J. (2017). We Consumers – Tastes, Rituals, and Waves. In: Folmer, B. (ed.), The Craft and Science of Coffee, Academic Press, ch. 19 (pp. 459–463 and 476 cited). doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00019-0 · other copies
  4. AKarababa, E.; Ger, G. (2011). Early Modern Ottoman Coffeehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject. Journal of Consumer Research 37(5), 737–760. doi:10.1086/656422 · other copies
  5. BFolmer, B.; Farah, A.; Jones, L.; Fogliano, V. (2017). Human Wellbeing – Sociability, Performance, and Health. In: Folmer, B. (ed.), The Craft and Science of Coffee, Academic Press, ch. 20 (pp. 494–495 cited). doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00020-7 · other copies
  6. AUNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (2013). Turkish coffee culture and tradition. UNESCO.
  7. AEllis, M. (2004). Pasqua Rosee's Coffee-House, 1652–1666. The London Journal 29(1), 1–24. doi:10.1179/ldn.2004.29.1.1 · other copies
  8. BClarence-Smith, W. G. (2007). The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (review no. 620). Reviews in History, Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
  9. AGrill, M. Ka koida Kaffee. Ein bibliographischer Kommentar zum Wiener Kaffeehaus als Desiderat der literaturwissenschaftlichen Gedächtnisforschung. Brücken. Germanistisches Jahrbuch Tschechien – Slowakei 27/1, Charles University, Prague.
  10. AÖsterreichische UNESCO-Kommission Wiener Kaffeehauskultur. Österreichisches Verzeichnis des immateriellen Kulturerbes (national inventory, entry of 2011).
  11. A/BStadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig Museum »Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum«. Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig (city museum).
  12. AEllis, M. (2008). An introduction to the coffee-house: A discursive model. Language & Communication 28, 156–164. doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2008.01.004 · other copies

Tier A · authoritative · B · trade and expert · C · general. Supporting quotes for every source are in the data version of this entry. If a publisher’s site refuses access, try the doi link or “other copies”.

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