Coffee is so thoroughly integrated into our lives that it’s strange to think it was considered a dangerous drug for centuries (per Mental Floss), even in the countries that would later become famous for their love of the stuff. In 1511 it was banned in the Arabian city of Mecca, near the port of Mocha, home to the arabica bean. Apparently, enemies of the sherif were discussing dangerous ideas over their bowls of coffee. The 17th century Ottoman sultan, Murad IV, was so convinced of coffee’s evil that he ordered imbibers beaten, and second-time offenders drowned. (Yet who today hasn’t heard of or sampled Turkish coffee?)
Frederick the Great would take the throne of Prussia, one of the states that preceded a united Germany, in 1740 (via Britannica). Famously fussy and conservative, the soldier-king saw coffee as a foreign vice, a competitor to the natural, healthy drink of the German people, beer. Worse, it was a fiscal threat. “At least 700,000 thaler leave the country annually just for coffee,” Frederick was alleged to have complained. In the mercantilist economy of the 18th century (also via Britannica), imports were a weakness. Money in, good; money out, bad.
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