Pasqua Rosée

Pasqua Rosée opened the first[1][2] coffeehouse in London in 1652.[3] The coffeehouse was located in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill. However, Rosée opened his very first coffee shop in Oxford, England in 1651.[4]

Pascal Rosée was of Armenian origin (Harutiun Vartian) born in Smyrne (Western Armenia) in the early seventeenth century.[5] In 1651 a merchant named Daniel Edwards, a member of the Levant Company and a trader in Turkish goods, encountered Rosée at Smyrna in Anatolia,[6] employed him as a manservant[7] and brought him back to Britain.

Once there, Rosée set up the establishment, its sign a portrait of Rosée.[8] However, local publicans in the highly regulated alehouse trade accused him of being an interloper, although it is unclear how successful this claim was. Nevertheless as he was not a freeman of the city of London he was debarred from any trade. However Daniel Edwards and his father-in-law, Alderman Thomas Hodges backed Hodges' apprentice, Christoper Bowman to become Rosée's business partner when he completed his apprenticeship and became freeman of the city of London on 22 February 1654.[9]

The partners moved the business into premises in nearby St Michael's Alley.[9] Jamaica Wine House now reputedly occupies the same space.[10]

Later Pascal Rosée moved to Paris where he opened the first Coffee shop in the French Capital on the Place Saint-Germain in the year 1672.


References
  1. The Printer's Devil Project: The Coffee House Archived 2013-08-01 at Archive.today
  2. A Albion Revisitada - By Luiz Carlos Soares - Page 226 - Google Books (Soares, Luiz Carlos. The Albion revisited: science, religion, illustration and commercialization of leisure in eighteenth-century England) (SOARES, Luiz Carlos. A Albion revisitada : ciência, religião, ilustração e comercialização do lazer na Inglaterra do século XVIII. Rio de Janeiro : 7Letras, 2007. 275 p.)
  3. Coffee House Tokens - Robert Thompson, London Numismatic Club, 3 October 2006
  4. Gately, Iain (2009). Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham Books. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-592-40464-3.
  5. The Ladies' Repository, Volume 5; Volume 30; p. 249; Isaac William Wiley
  6. The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug By Bennett Alan Weinberg, Bonnie K. Bealer
  7. British Muslim Heritage - The London Coffee House
  8. "The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink" - 1652 handbill, advertising St. Michael's Alley, the first coffee shop in London. It is held in the British Museum.
  9. Ellis, Markman (2011). The Coffee-House: A Cultural History. Orion. ISBN 978-1-78022-055-0.
  10. Jamaica Wine House, in the alley just off Cornhill, at the church of St Michael, occupies the Pasqua Rosée Coffee House site
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.