Lunchtime talk by Chris MacNeil on London's coffee trade, from 17th-century coffeehouses at the Frost Fairs to today's café culture.
Chris MacNeil is taking a look at London's coffee history at The London Archives on Monday 9 November, with a lunchtime talk called Coffee on Ice - London's Frost Fairs & 375 Years of Coffee. It's a long view of the city's relationship with the drink, stretching from the 17th century right up to the café culture we live with today.
He starts the story at a Frost Fair on the frozen River Thames, where vendors served one of the city's newest and most fashionable drinks. From there, he traces how those early coffeehouses grew into centres of news, finance, science and politics, and how industrialisation later turned cafés into mass-market venues. The talk then brings it back to the present, looking at how the modern speciality coffee movement has rediscovered the principles that made those first coffeehouses so successful. It's a good way to see how a single drink has mirrored the city's changes over nearly four centuries.
MacNeil knows his way around the subject. He's a City of London Green Badge Guide and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers, and has given hundreds of walking tours on London's history and commerce. He's also delivered a TEDx talk, What 17th-Century Caffeine Addicts Can Teach Us About the Future of Work, which sits right in the wheelhouse of this one.
Every week we pick đ the 5 best đ things to do in London and send them to your inbox. Just one weekly email, no spam.
By submitting your email, you accept our Privacy Policy
The talk runs from 12:30pm to 1:30pm on Monday 9 November at The London Archives, 40 Northampton Road, London EC1R 0HB. Tickets are ÂŁ10. The venue itself is a free public archive covering the city's history from 1067 to the present, holding over 3.5 million documents, so it's a fitting place to hear a talk that digs back into the city's past.
