Lecture 22: Dutch Treat—Coffee, Tea, Sugar, Tobacco
their own sugar, and they developed a new manufacturing process
that replaced the old Mediterranean press. Because sugar was arriving in Europe in vast quantities, the price
plummets. However, that doesn’t matter in the least because it is
being marketed to a new consumer. It is now fobbed off on ordinary
people, and the demand for sugar becomes so great that the industry
just grows and grows. Europeans—and North Americans, of
course—become sugar addicts. There are other colonial products that are even more convincingly
addictive. Tobacco is not just something that might make you fat or
give you cavities—it kills you. There were both social and medical
warnings against smoking, but business, trade, and wealth overrode
them, just as they often do today.Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages in the world.© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.