Pasqua Rosée

Pasqua Rosée, opened the first coffee-house in London in 1652.[1][2][3] The coffee-house was located in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill. Rosée had previously opened his first coffee shop in Oxford, England in 1651.[4]

Rosée's origin is not clear, however he probably was born to a Greek community of the Republic of Ragusa[5] and moved to Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (modern-day Izmir, Turkey in Asia Minor in the early seventeenth century.[6] In 1651 a merchant named Daniel Edwards, a member of the Levant Company and a trader in Turkish goods, encountered Rosée at Smyrna[7] employed him as a manservant[8] and brought him back to Britain.

Once there, Rosée set up the establishment, its sign a portrait of Rosée.[9] However, local publicans in the highly regulated alehouse trade accused him of being an interloper, although it is unclear how successful this claim was. Nevertheless as he was not a freeman of the city of London he was debarred from any trade. However Daniel Edwards and his father-in-law, Alderman Thomas Hodges backed Hodges' apprentice, Christoper Bowman to become Rosée's business partner when he completed his apprenticeship and became freeman of the city of London on 22 February 1654.[10]

The partners moved the business into premises in nearby St Michael's Alley.[10] Jamaica Wine House now reputedly occupies the same space.[11]

Later, Pascal Rosée moved to Paris, where he opened the first Parisian coffee shop on the Place Saint-Germain in 1672.

References
  1. The Printer's Devil Project: The Coffee House Archived 2013-08-01 at archive.today
  2. A Albion Revisitada - By Luiz Carlos Soares - Page 226 - Google Books (Soares, Luiz Carlos. The Albion revisited: science, religion, illustration and commercialization of leisure in eighteenth-century England) (SOARES, Luiz Carlos. A Albion revisitada : ciência, religião, ilustração e comercialização do lazer na Inglaterra do século XVIII. Rio de Janeiro : 7Letras, 2007. 275 p.)
  3. Coffee House Tokens - Robert Thompson, London Numismatic Club, 3 October 2006
  4. Gately, Iain (2009). Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham Books. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-592-40464-3.
  5. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  6. The Ladies' Repository, Volume 5; Volume 30; p. 249; Isaac William Wiley
  7. The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug By Bennett Alan Weinberg, Bonnie K. Bealer
  8. British Muslim Heritage - The London Coffee House
  9. "The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink" - 1652 handbill, advertising St. Michael's Alley, the first coffee shop in London. It is held in the British Museum.
  10. Ellis, Markman (2011). The Coffee-House: A Cultural History. Orion. ISBN 978-1-78022-055-0.
  11. Jamaica Wine House, in the alley just off Cornhill, at the church of St Michael, occupies the Pasqua Rosée Coffee House site
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