Coffee: Preventing Scurvy Since 1650

Who knew?

In 1650, St. Michael's Alley, London's first coffee shop, placed an ad in a newspaper. That ad -- archived in the British Museum, and Internet-ed by the Vintage Ads LiveJournal -- extolled the many Vertues of the newly discovered beverage. Which "groweth upon little Trees, only in the Deserts of Arabia," and which is -- despite and ostensibly because of its Vertues -- "a simple innocent thing."

(link) [The Atlantic]

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