Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
It's the 18th century and the coffee you just forked over a whole penny over for tastes like dirty water, but luckily, along with the bitter brew, you are getting a front row seat to the greatest minds of the generation discussing and debating everything from dolphin anatomy to the transit of Venus. All of a sudden, that penny is looking like pretty good value.
This is a brief introduction to early coffee houses (often known as Penny universities) and the impact that coffee culture has had on scientific thought since its earliest introduction to the UK.
To find out more about coffee-related objects in our collection, explore the Science Museum Group's Collection online: collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
Chapters:
00:00 The earliest connections between science and coffee.
00:56 Coffee routes into the UK
01:21 Coffee as a social drink
01:50 London shop signs
02:50 Coffee houses and women
03:20 the other functions of a coffee house
05:13 Coffee houses as hotbeds of sedition
06:15 Banning coffee houses
Images courtesy of:
Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collections
Alamy
Archive.org
Art Institute Chicago
Lloyds of London
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Granger Collection/Alamy
Wellcome Collection
Wikimedia Commons
Yale Centre for British Art
Under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license:
Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
The Clockmakers' Museum/Clarissa Bruce
The Trustees of the British Museum
Wien Museum/Birgit und Peter Kainz
#coffee #history #georgianlondon
It's the 18th century and the coffee you just forked over a whole penny over for tastes like dirty water, but luckily, along with the bitter brew, you are getting a front row seat to the greatest minds of the generation discussing and debating everything from dolphin anatomy to the transit of Venus. All of a sudden, that penny is looking like pretty good value.
This is a brief introduction to early coffee houses (often known as Penny universities) and the impact that coffee culture has had on scientific thought since its earliest introduction to the UK.
To find out more about coffee-related objects in our collection, explore the Science Museum Group's Collection online: collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
Chapters:
00:00 The earliest connections between science and coffee.
00:56 Coffee routes into the UK
01:21 Coffee as a social drink
01:50 London shop signs
02:50 Coffee houses and women
03:20 the other functions of a coffee house
05:13 Coffee houses as hotbeds of sedition
06:15 Banning coffee houses
Images courtesy of:
Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collections
Alamy
Archive.org
Art Institute Chicago
Lloyds of London
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Granger Collection/Alamy
Wellcome Collection
Wikimedia Commons
Yale Centre for British Art
Under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license:
Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
The Clockmakers' Museum/Clarissa Bruce
The Trustees of the British Museum
Wien Museum/Birgit und Peter Kainz
#coffee #history #georgianlondon
