out 1668
the burghers succumbed to coffee[91]. Coffee made its way slowly, first
in the homes, where it replaced the "must", or beer, at breakfast.
Chocolate came about the same time, but was more of a luxury than tea or
coffee.

After the surrender of New York to the British in 1674, English manners
and customs were rapidly introduced. First tea, and later coffee, were
favorite beverages in the homes. By 1683 New York had become so central
a market for the green bean, that William Penn, as soon as he found
himself comfortably settled in the Pennsylvania Colony, sent over to New
York for his coffee supplies[92]. It was not long before a social need
arose that only the London style of coffee house could fill.

The coffee houses of early New York, like their prototypes in London,
Paris, and other old world capitals, were the centers of the business,
political and, to some extent, of the social life of the city. But they
never became the forcing-beds of literature that the French and English
houses were, principally because the colonists had no professional
writers of note.

There is one outstanding feature of the early American coffee houses,
particularly of those opened in New York, that is not distinctive of the
European houses. The colonists sometimes held court trials in the long,
or assembly, room of the early coffee houses; and often held their
general assembly and council meetings there.

_The Coffee House as a Civic Forum_

The early coffee house was an important factor in New York life. What
the perpetuation of this public gathering place meant to the citizens is
shown by a complaint (evidently designed to revive the declining
fortunes of the historic Merchants coffee house) in the _New York
Journal_ of October 19, 1775, which, in part, said:

To the Inhabitants of New York:

It gives me concern, in this time of public difficulty and danger,
to find we have in this city no place of daily general meeting,
where we might hear and communicate intelligence from every quarter
and freely confer with one another on every matter that concerns
us. Such a place of general meeting is of very great advantage in
many respects, especially at such a time as this, besides the
satisfaction it affords and the sociable disposition it has a
tendency to keep up among us, which was never more wanted than at
this time. To answer all these and many other good and useful
p