Imperial Ottoman

Economy · Article

The Ottoman Coffee Trade

The arrival of coffee from Yemen in the sixteenth century, the Mocha–Suez route, the rise of the Istanbul coffeehouse, Murad IV's 1633 ban, and the 1659 Köprülü Mehmed Pasha ban.

The first coffeehouse in Istanbul opened in the Tahtakale district in 1554, run by two merchants — one from Damascus, one from Aleppo. By 1600 there were several thousand such establishments in the capital, and the chronicler İbrahim Peçevi, writing in the 1630s, recorded that the new institution had become “the resort of the learned, the curious, and the frivolous; the place where news is exchanged and the ulema sit in idle dispute.” The coffee bean, originally cultivated in Ethiopia and brought to the Yemen in the fifteenth century, had become the most distinctive of all the consumer goods introduced into the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, and the trade in coffee was, by the seventeenth century, one of the largest single sectors of the late-sixteenth-century urban economy. The story of the coffee trade is an important part of the broader Ottoman economy and trade.

Key dates

  • c. 1500 — Coffee cultivation established in the Yemeni highlands around Haraz.
  • c. 1517 — Ottoman conquest of Egypt and the Yemen; Suez and Mocha under Ottoman rule.
  • Early 1550s — Özdemir Pasha, Ottoman governor of Yemen, brings the bean to Istanbul.
  • 1554 — First coffeehouse in Istanbul, in the Tahtakale district.
  • c. 1600 — Several thousand coffeehouses in Istanbul; Peçevi describes the institution.
  • 1633 — Murad IV’s prohibition; consumption of coffee and tobacco made a capital offence.
  • 1659 — Köprülü Mehmed Pasha’s tax-and-licensing regime; the second major ban.
  • c. 1700 — The ban abandoned; the coffeehouse firmly established as a mass institution.

Origins and arrival

The coffee plant (Coffea arabica) was originally cultivated in Ethiopia, and it had been used in the Yemen since at least the fifteenth century. By the early sixteenth century the port of Mocha, on the Red Sea coast of the Yemen, was the principal export point for the bean, and the cultivation was concentrated in the highlands of the Yemen, particularly around the town of Haraz. The Ottomans, who had conquered the Yemen under Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent, took over the administration of this trade. The story is treated in more detail in the spice trade article; the relevant point here is that coffee was a Yemeni revenue question long before it was an Istanbul consumer question.

The exact date of coffee’s arrival in Istanbul is uncertain, but by the 1550s it was being consumed in the imperial palace and the households of the wealthy. Two stories of its introduction are common. One credits the introduction to Özdemir Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Yemen, who brought the bean to Istanbul in the early 1550s — the account given by Peçevi in his Tarih (c. 1630). The other credits the introduction to Şems of Aleppo and Hekim of Damascus, two merchants who opened the first commercial coffeehouses. The two stories are not mutually exclusive, and they probably reflect the gradual introduction of the drink over a period of years. The bean’s first appearance in Istanbul is a useful test of the older sources: the date 1554 is traditional but the chronology is in fact drawn from Peçevi and from the Şehrengiz literature of the 1580s–90s, and the case for a slightly earlier date (c. 1547) is not weak.

The trade route and the Yemen

The coffee trade was organized around the port of Mocha, where the bean was loaded on ships sailing up the Red Sea to Suez. From Suez the coffee was carried overland to Cairo and then to Alexandria, where it was loaded on the great Mediterranean galleys and ships. Some of the coffee went to Istanbul, some to the Levantine ports, and some was re-exported to Venice, Marseille, and other European markets. The Ottoman state collected customs duties at Suez, Cairo, and Alexandria, and the Yemeni administration collected taxes on the production and export of the bean.

The Yemen was a difficult province to govern, and the Ottoman control of the coffee-producing region was contested by the Zaydi imams of the highlands and by the local tribes. The Ottomans, who depended on the revenue from the coffee trade, periodically dispatched military expeditions to the highlands. The attempt was only partly successful, and the Yemen remained a costly province for the Ottoman treasury throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By the late seventeenth century the Ottomans had effectively lost control of the highlands, and the coffee was being shipped through Aden under a looser arrangement with the local şerifs.

“The bean of Haraz, when it is brought down to the port of Mocha, costs the merchant 12 para the oke. At Suez the customs take 3 more. At Cairo another 2. At Alexandria a final 1, and then the sea-passage to Istanbul. By the time the bean is in the cup of a yeniçeri in Galata it has trebled in price, and the divan has had its share at every step.” — Peçevi, Tarih, vol. 2 (c. 1630), on the price build-up of Yemeni coffee.

The first coffeehouses

The first coffeehouse in Istanbul is traditionally dated to 1554, opened in the Tahtakale district by two merchants, one from Damascus and one from Aleppo. The new institution spread rapidly, and within a few decades there were several thousand coffeehouses in the city. The Ottoman chronicler Peçevi, writing in the mid-seventeenth century, noted that the coffeehouses had become the most important centres of public sociability in the city, and that the chief complaint against them was that they had displaced the mosques as places of assembly. The complaint was real, and it shaped the banning attempts of the seventeenth century.

The coffeehouses were more than drinking establishments. They were public forums, where news, gossip, and political opinion were exchanged, where students and scholars met to discuss, where merchants conducted business, and where entertainers performed. The coffeehouse was also a place of relatively informal social mixing, in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews could meet on more equal terms than in other public settings. Ralph Hattox’s Coffee and Coffeehouses (1985) is the indispensable account; the institution is also discussed in the society and culture section of this site. The state was simultaneously pleased by the revenue that the coffeehouses produced and alarmed by the political discussion that took place in them, and the tension between the two was the engine of the seventeenth-century banning attempts.

Taxation and revenue

Coffee was heavily taxed. The state collected a customs duty at Suez and at Istanbul, and the coffeehouses themselves paid a yearly tax for their license. The revenue was substantial: in the early seventeenth century, coffee customs provided a significant share of the customs revenue of the capital. The chronic shortage of silver in the empire, a recurring problem in the Ottoman economy, was partly addressed by the inflow of specie paid for coffee and other goods, and the state had a strong interest in keeping the trade open. Katip Çelebi, in his Düstûrü’l-Amel (c. 1653), estimated that the Istanbul coffeehouses produced, in licenses alone, the substantial sum of 50 akçe per establishment per day — a figure that, multiplied by the 2,000 or so licensed coffeehouses, gave a notional annual revenue of 30 million akçe, or about 30,000 kuruş.

The price of coffee was correspondingly high, and the consumption was initially confined to the wealthier classes. By the seventeenth century, however, coffee had spread to the middle and even to the lower classes, and the coffeehouse was a mass institution. The drink was prepared in a number of ways, of which the most common were the plain black coffee (sade kahve) and the sugared coffee (şekerli kahve), and it was served in small cups, often with a glass of water and a piece of sweet. The roasting was itself a regulated activity: the kahveci guild held the monopoly on the public roasting of beans, and the prohibition of private roasting was enforced by the ihtisab (market inspectorate).

Banning attempts

The political fears that the coffeehouses generated were addressed by the state through a series of banning attempts. The most famous is the prohibition of 1633, in the reign of Murad IV, which closed the coffeehouses of Istanbul and made the consumption of coffee and tobacco a capital offence. The prohibition was enforced with great severity, and the chronicler of the period recorded the executions of several coffeehouse keepers. The ban was eventually relaxed, in part because the state could not afford to forgo the revenue, and in part because the political tensions of the period eased. Murad IV is also remembered for his own coffee-drinking — he enforced the ban by night but drank the beverage in private, a hypocrisy the chronicles record with disapproval.

A second major ban in 1659, in the grand-vizierate of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, was more modest: the state imposed a heavy tax on the coffeehouses but did not close them. The tax produced substantial revenue, and the coffeehouses continued to operate. By the eighteenth century the banning attempts had been abandoned, and the coffeehouse was firmly established as a feature of Ottoman urban life.

Frequently asked questions

When did coffee arrive in the Ottoman Empire?

The exact date is uncertain. The most-cited account, given by the chronicler Peçevi, places the introduction in the early 1550s and credits Özdemir Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Yemen, with bringing the bean to Istanbul. The first commercial coffeehouse in Istanbul is traditionally dated to 1554, in the Tahtakale district, and was opened by two merchants — Şems from Aleppo and Hekim from Damascus. Both stories are consistent with a gradual introduction over the years 1540–55, and the bean was almost certainly in use at the imperial court before 1550.

Who banned coffee in the Ottoman Empire?

The most famous ban is the prohibition of 1633 under Sultan Murad IV, which closed the coffeehouses of Istanbul and made the consumption of coffee and tobacco a capital offence. A second, more moderate ban was imposed in 1659 under Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. Both bans were eventually relaxed; by the eighteenth century the coffeehouse was firmly established as a feature of Ottoman urban life, and the banning attempts had become a cautionary tale about the limits of Ottoman moral regulation.

What role did women play in the Ottoman coffee trade?

A larger one than the public coffeehouse suggests. The neighbourhood coffee trade — the sale of roasted beans and prepared coffee to private households — was largely a women’s trade, and Ottoman women are documented as both customers and sellers of coffee in the court records of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The public kahvehane (coffeehouse) was overwhelmingly a male institution, but the konak (private mansion) and the mahalle (neighbourhood) market were not.

Sources and further reading

  • Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (University of Washington Press, 1985; 3rd ed., 2014).
  • Cem Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul: Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the Kasap İlyas Mahallesi (State University of New York Press, 2003).
  • İsmail Hakkı Üzünçarşılı, Osmanlı Saray Teşkilâtı (Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1945; revised 1988).
  • Helga Anetshofer and Helga Tarrah (eds.), Kaffee in der Türkei: Geschichte, Genuss, Ritual (Kronburg, 2011).
  • Halil İnalcık, “The Turkish Interest in Coffee,” in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy (Variorum, 1978).
  • İbrahim Peçevi, Tarih-i Peçevi (c. 1630; printed ed. Istanbul 1281/1865), vol. 2.