a conversation. (It was no wonder that
King Charles II tried to outlaw coffee-
houses in 1675, or that satirists, who
may have had Royalist leanings, de-
cried coffee drinkers as impotent and
overly talkative.) Coffee, which re-
mains a vital social lubricant today,
undoubtedly propelled late-night ne-
gotiations in early modern England
and empowered radical thinkers to
imagine a world with greater politi-
cal liberty.
Stephen B. Dobranski
Distinguished University Professor
Department of English
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Ga.
1
HOWTO FIGHT COVID-I read with appreciation Amy David-
son Sorkin’s piece about global efforts
to contain the coronavirus (Comment,
April 27th). She points to the talk
about how countries led by women
seem to be faring relatively well in
the fight against COVID-19, and rightly
notes that these nations are “dispro-
portionately small, wealthy, Scandi-
navian, and, not incidentally, provid-
ers of universal health care.” It occurred
to me that there may be other con-
tributing social factors as well. These
lauded countries with women lead-
ers—including, but not limited to,
New Zealand, Taiwan, Germany, Den-
mark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland—
also tend to accept the legitimacy of
science, and to take a rational ap-
proach to balancing public health with
personal freedoms. It is therefore not
surprising that their citizens are more
likely to express an open mind at the
polls, about both party leaders and
party policies.
Scott K. Ralph
Oakville, Ont.COFFEEHOUSE CULTURES
Adam Gopnik fluidly leads us through
the historical and economic underpin-
nings of coffee drinking to elucidate
the global web of the bean (Books,
April 27th). He observes that the
growth of coffee culture in the United
States can be measured by the large
numbers of epicurean cafés, coffee con-
noisseurs, and imported espresso beans
that have entered society since 1989.
This notion of an American coffee
culture implies that the people par-
taking in it have become “cultured.”
Yet there are more quotidian coffee
cultures in American history worth
mentioning. I think back to the do-
mestic routines developed in mid-
century America: of the percolator
perched on our kitchen counter, of
Mrs. Olson saving marriages with
Mountain Grown Folger’s, of the ubiq-
uitous packets of Sanka, of the rotgut
coffee at truck stops, and of taking
your coffee “white” (with cream). All
this, from what seems like a lifetime
ago, was just as much a culture of coffee,
and just as integral to the changing
history of the brew.
Maureen Barbara Jackson
Seattle, Wash.
As I was reading Gopnik’s piece on
the link between coffee and capital-
ism, I was put in mind of the bean’s
arrival in England—an event with
impressive political and social reper-
cussions. An early English coffee cul-
ture arose by the mid-seventeenth
century, prompting writers to extoll
(and exaggerate) the drink’s alleged
health benefits. (One advertisement,
from 1652, claimed that coffee could
cure gout, aid digestion, and prevent
miscarriages.) Coffee, more than claret
or ale, was well suited to democratic
discourse. The new drink was espe-
cially favored by Parliamentarians after
the English Civil War: coffeehouses
eventually became known as “penny
universities”—places where men of
different classes, opinions, and trades
could sit around a table and strike up
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