People all over the world envy The laid-back nature of Europe: there are long holidays every year, long lunch breaks every day, which can be swung until three or four o'clock, and more importantly, there are so many cafes.
1、
In 1964, the New York Times published a small article titled Need for a Sidewalk Cafe Society.
The author complains that there are too few street cafes in New York. He called on New York to build a street café culture like that of European cities.
It was still the era of pre-globalization, and American pop culture had not yet begun to dominate the world, and it would be the world trade center on the top of the world, and it would be almost a decade before it was completed and put into use.
Therefore, the author's writing is full of praise and yearning for European cities.
He wrote: "Even the brightly lit Empire State Building is no match for the Pantheon under the Roman moonlight." ”
Yes, no matter how strong the New World is, it will not be able to learn the elegance that old money has cultivated over thousands of years in a short period of time.
In the turbulent American mood of the 1960s and the rise of social movements, New York was far from a city that could accommodate a sophisticated attitude to life.
Europeans could drink coffee on the streets until three or four o'clock in the afternoon, but at that time, there were only a few 30 street cafes in the whole of New York City.
The restaurant is only a place to quickly solve the lunch, and if you want to stay until the afternoon after eating, you will inevitably be caused by the waiter's impatient blank eyes.
The article later had an unexpected effect, and Thousands of street cafes opened in New York.
That number sounds like a lot, but you know —
Milan, which has a population of one-tenth of New York, has thousands of cafes; london has two thousand cafes as early as 1715.
In this comparison, the gap comes out.
In the 1980s, the American chain business model rose, and chain coffee shops filled the streets and became the first choice for people to drink coffee.
These chains of coffee shops are clean and tidy, offering uniform standard tastes, but ultimately without the laid-back feel of a traditional café.
In other corners of the world, the American business model is also spread like a virus with the power of destruction and decay.
We are finally drifting away from the old European way of life, which has to be said to be a pity.
2、
Fortunately, Europe is still trying to maintain its original appearance for hundreds of years, and Europeans still go to cafes for coffee day after day.
Today we travel to other countries, mostly straight to a variety of natural and cultural attractions, from large rivers, alpine lakes, sunrise and sunset, to cultural relics and architectural wonders.
These things are available in Europe. But beyond that, the most precious thing in Europe is the rich atmosphere of life in the city, and this atmosphere of life is largely created by cafes.
If you recall, almost every literary film set in Europe, from Woody Allen's European trilogy to the "Love Before Sunset" trilogy to "Call Me By Your Name," has a lot of scenes of sitting on the side of the road drinking coffee.
Regardless of Western Europe and Eastern Europe, regardless of the size of the city, cafes can be found on the streets of Europe.
From the small squares in the city center to every street corner you turn, you'll find cafes and locals sipping coffee at leisure.
As instinct would, Europeans would place a few coffee tables next to every heart-warming little landscape, even if it was just a small clump of green trees and red flowers, even if it was just a few pigeons to take a walk on the sidewalk, if you want, you can always sit down for a cup of coffee and go.
That's why they're qualified to say:
"If I'm not at home, it's in a café; if I'm not in a café, it's on the way to a café."
When you go to Europe, you don't have to do anything, you don't have to go anywhere, just find a few cafes to stay in all afternoons, it is already very beautiful, this is the most charming charm in Europe.
3、
People who are keen on wild history like to say that cafes have forged European civilization, and there are many examples to support it.
For example, in 17th-century London, people from all walks of life had their favorite cafes, they drank coffee and talked about it, and in the collision of ideas, they conceived the prototype of many modern industries such as auction and insurance.
For example, the first newspapers in many European countries were born in cafes.
For example, Van Gogh, Bach, Sartre, Balzac... And so on, the masters found their inspiration in the cafés, which spawned countless literary masterpieces, political theories and classic paintings.
Even the storm of the French Revolution was brewing in cafes, where revolutionaries chanting "Arm up, citizens" eventually captured the Bastille.
But I think these are just side effects of the café's extra gifts.
The most important value of European cafes is that they provide a template for a relaxed and elegant lifestyle.
Coffee and wine are social drinks, and cafes and taverns are social places where people meet, but they are quite different.
The popularity of coffee and cafes is, in a sense, a product of the maturity of the intellectual class.
The people's aesthetic has reached a certain height, and they have higher requirements for life, no longer just want to work all day and run for five buckets of rice.
They need a drink that, unlike alcohol, is drunk after drinking it, but can refresh the mind, stimulate the mind, and promote thinking.
They need a quiet and somewhat tasteful public space, not full of noisy and rude drinkers like a messy tavern, but to be comfortable alone and let the mind rest.
Or, you can have a long conversation with your friends, talk about philosophy and poetry in the open sky, let the ideas collide freely, and let the inspiration burst out passionately.
In this way, the café replaced the salon with the nature of a small circle and became an open public space, and coffee and café have since profoundly changed the social relationship between people, citizens and citizens, and even groups and groups.
The popularity of café culture is not only because of the rich and mellow aroma of the coffee itself, but also because of the social meaning of "letting people meet each other" and the leisurely life that can "do nothing".
4、
But to go back in time to the history of coffee, mention one city you might not expect: Istanbul.
Unlike wine, coffee has a short history of popularity in countries around the world.
Almost 1,000 years ago, Ethiopians first started growing coffee beans. Then it took hundreds of years for coffee to travel through the Arabian Peninsula and spread to the Ottoman Empire.
In 1555, the Ottoman Empire's Constantinople, which is today's Istanbul, gave birth to the world's first recorded café, called Kiva Han.
Since then, the café culture has been opened.
Constantinople has always been the gateway to transport from Asia to Europe, a melting pot of different cultures, flavors, tastes and ideas.
Kiva Han's décor shows the grandeur of Constantinople at the time, and the images we can collect today – the meticulously colored and inlaid bricks, the marble façade and carvings, and the customers in flowing robes and exquisite headdresses – are all magnificent.
With a leisurely afternoon, treat yourself as an "ancient European" who truly understands the taste of life, and together with like-minded gourmets, trace the social origins of coffee along the long river of history, find the original intention and understand the bright and long-standing culture behind each wisp of fragrance.