First chocolate drinking house in London

The consumption of chocolate became popular among the early Spanish settlers in the Americas but was kept secret from other nations.

After Colmenero’s treatise on chocolate translated into English and published in London in 1640, chocolate became fashionable drink in England.

The first chocolate drinking house was established in London in 1657 by a Frenchman who produced the first advertisement for the chocolate drinks.

The June 6, 1657 issue of the Public Advertiser announced, "In Bishopgate St, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West Indian drink called Chocolate to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time and also unmade at reasonable rates."

The paper proclaimed chocolate’s medicinal qualities, writing that the drink ‘cures and preserves the body of many diseases.’ The chocolate house was mentioned in Pepys’s Diary of 1664 where he wrote that ‘jocolatte’ was ‘very good’.

During the 18th century White’s Chocolate House became the fashionable place for young Londoners, while politicians of the day went to the Cocoa Tree Chocolate House.

At chocolate houses wealthy men paid an entrance fee to drink hot chocolate, gamble, play cards, eat, socialize and discuss politics, became fashionable in London.

Excessive taxation did not spoil Britain’s appetite for chocolate. In 1874, an avant-garde London coffeehouse called At the Coffee Mill and Tobacco Roll began serving chocolate in cakes and rolls in the Spanish tradition.
First chocolate drinking house in London

First coffeehouse in London

In 1652 a trader named Edward returned to England from the orient accompanied by a Greek by the name of Pasqua Rosee and he knows how to prepare coffee.

Edward and his father in law were exposed to the rich Turkish traditions surrounding coffee in Smyrna. They wanted to recreate some of the exotic experience upon returning to London. Since they were ‘too grand and busy’ to open a coffeehouse, they sponsored Rosee to rise to the occasion.

In the same year he founded London’s first coffee house in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill in front of the Church leading to the Royal Exchange, with the hope that the merchants who congregate at the exchange would be willing to try out a drink of coffee.

Pasqua produced the first coffee ad in English a prospectus in which he proclaimed ‘The Virtue of the Coffee Drink’. What has been described as ‘an integrated retail and business space’ was no more than a simple stall. It featured decorated shutters providing rudimentary shelter for the customers when opened and a sign an image of the owner dressed in Oriental fashion.

Coffee was roasted and brewed in the shed and sold over the counter. Pasqua using coffee beans imported from the city of Izmir in the Ottoman Empire.

In 1657, the first coffee newspaper advertisement appeared, in the London based paper The Public Adviser, and that Pasqua dressed like a Turk. The sign of the turbaned head became a common symbol of the early coffeehouse.

Many followed Pasqua step, by 1739 there were 551 coffeehouses in London. By 1700, there were 2000 coffeehouse in London.
First coffeehouse in London