Tea and coffee houses

Teahouses

Mao Zedong was never caught drinking a cup of tea; he clearly preferred sake. This does not alter the fact that his interest in the lively and rustic traditional teahouses was limited to curbing and even prohibiting them. He undoubtedly took the same view as Marco Polo, who considered tea 'a drink for women and elders'.

The advent of the People's Republic in 1949, the 'Great Leap Forward' from 1958 to 1966, and the Cultural Revolution in 1966 were disastrous for the development of teahouses. The charter drawn up to support the Cultural Revolution of 1966 protested against the 'Four Olds; old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits'. The Red Guards based their acts of terrorism on this.

Teahouses, suspected by revolutionary Chinese of transmitting bourgeois ideas, served both as places of relaxation and as venues for exchanging folk culture. Singers, poets, calligraphers, and musicians performed there at certain times of the day. This is what Mao Zedong and his comrades called 'unproductive activities'. The centuries-old foundation of these teahouses no longer exists today; a few decades ago, you could find at least one in every village.

Coffee Houses

In Mecca, the very first coffee houses, known as "Kaveh Kanes," were established. Initially, these coffee houses had a religious purpose, but they quickly evolved into meeting places to discuss news, sing, and dance. After Mecca, coffee houses soon followed in Aden, Medina, and Cairo.
Due to the rapid spread of coffee throughout Europe, the first 'Christian' European coffee houses also quickly emerged. The first was in Venice in 1645, followed rapidly by Oxford, London, The Hague, Hamburg, and Paris.

Throughout Europe, a coffeehouse culture quickly emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries. People went to a coffeehouse to read a newspaper for a long time or talk with others while enjoying coffee. Many writers worked on their craft in coffeehouses, and a lot of knowledge was also shared in these establishments. Whoever entered a coffeehouse took a seat next to the penultimate person. In coffeehouses, there were no fixed seats, and reservations were not possible. This created an enormous openness that probably attracted many people and made coffeehouses immensely popular.