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CafeA coffeehouse, coffee shop, or cafe (also spelled as café from the French, Spanish, and Portuguese or caffè from the Italian) shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on providing coffee and tea as well as light snacks. Other food may range from baked goods to soups and sandwiches, other casual meals, and light desserts. In some countries, cafes may more closely resemble restaurants, offering a range of hot meals, and possibly being licensed to serve alcohol. Many coffee houses in the Muslim world, and in Muslim districts in the West, offer shisha, powdered tobacco smoked through a hookah. In establishments where it is tolerated, which may be found notably in the Netherlands, in Christiania (Copenhagen, Denmark), and in certain parts of Canada, cannabis is smoked as well. An essential part of a coffeehouse from its beginnings has been its social functions, providing a place where people go to congregate, talk, write, read, play games, or while away time individually or in small groups. This tradition is alive especially in the original Viennese cafés which offer (at least) fine sweet bakery and great coffee along with any degree between cemeterial tranquility, urban hustle and enthralling cultural events. In those extended living rooms you may enjoy, as a typical ironic local phrase says, being "not at home and yet not out in fresh air" - caused, different from the aromatic diversity described above, almost merely by common tobacco industry products. In Middle East, since the 16th century, the coffeehouse (al-maqhah in Arabic qahveh-khaneh in Persian or kahvehane or kıraathane in Turkish) has served as a social gathering place where men assemble to drink coffee or tea, listen to music, read books, play chess and backgammon, perhaps hear a recitation from the works of Antar or from Shahnameh. In modern Syria, Iran and Turkey, coffeehouses may attract a male crowd to watch the public TV. The traditional tale of the origins of Viennese coffeehouses begins with the mysterious sacks of green beans left behind when the Turks were defeated in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. All the sacks of coffee were granted to the victorious Polish king Jan III Sobieski, who in turn gave them to one of his officers, Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki. Kulczycki began the first coffeehouse in Vienna with the hoard. This has the ring of apocrypha to skeptics who find the story too pat — and the date too late. In the 16th century there were coffee houses in Istanbul, Cairo and Mecca, and in the 17th century coffeehouses opened for the first time in Europe. Coffeehouses first became popular in Europe with the introduction of coffee in the 17th century. The first Turkish coffeehouse in England was set up in Oxford by one Jacob or Jacobs, a Turkish Jew, in 1650. The first coffeehouse in London was opened two years later in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the Ragusan servant of a trader in Turkish goods named Daniel Edwards, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment . Boston had its first in 1670, and Paris in 1671. The Cafe Le Procope , which was founded in Paris in 1689, is still in business. It was a major locus of the French Enlightenment; Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot frequented it, and it is arguably the birthplace of the Encyclopédie, the first modern encyclopedia. Check out the following recipes that are tagged "Cafe":
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