Author: Miss Cellania / Source: Neatorama
As coffee made its way out of Ethiopia to the rest of the world, it was an insanely controversial drink. The fact that people loved and enjoyed it was enough to brand it as sinful. Ottoman Sultan Murad IV took note of the coffee’s popularity and set out to destroy the coffeehouses of Istanbul in 1633.
Being caught drinking coffee in public would get you beaten on the first offense, a second offensive meant death.Odd though it may sound, Murad IV was neither the first nor last person to crack down on coffee drinking; he was just arguably the most brutal and successful in his efforts. Between the early 16th and late 18th centuries, a host of…
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