Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.21857/ygjwrcen5y
The Beginnings of the Culture of Coffee Enjoying and Coffeehouses in Zadar
Marin Banović
; Odjel za povijest, Sveučilište u Zadru Zadar, Hrvatska
*
* Dopisni autor.
Sažetak
The acculturation of coffee enjoying in the Croatian Adriatic communes in the 18th century began slightly later than in Western Europe. It is evident from the preserved Adriatic harbour records on the transport by merchant ships that the highly esteemed Levantine coffee most often arrived to the big harbours – Venice, Ancona and Trieste – via the Ottoman harbour of Izmir in Asia Minor, whilst the coffee grown in the European transatlantic colonies mainly arrived via the French harbour of Marseille. The Croatian shippers had a considerable part in this trade – at first mainly residents of Dubrovnik, and subsequently inhabitants of Dalmatia, Boka kotorska and the Littoral. They transferred the raw material, the preparation skills and the culture of coffee enjoying from the abovementioned harbours along the Apennine coast to the towns in the east Adriatic.
Zadar as the administrative centre of the east Adriatic coast and its major harbour for maritime trade often pioneered in accepting the overseas cultural influences – coffee certainly among them. The adoption of coffee and the implementation of coffee enjoying, to the most part reconstructed by the analysis of archival records made by public notaries of Zadar, lasted during the entire 18th century, when Zadar was the centre of the Venetian east-Adriatic possessions. Among the urban population, it was completed during the Austrian and the French rule over the town at the turn of the 18th and the 19th centuries, when even people in the lower socioeconomic strata of the urban population often enjoyed coffee.
At the same time, coffeehouses took root in Zadar as a new institution in the society of the east Adriatic communes in settecento. Coffee business demanded new hospitality skills, thus a new occupation appeared in the town: coffeehouse proprietor. The Zadar coffeehouses, concentrated in the main town square, offered other services in addition to enjoying coffee. One could enjoy pastries and cakes there as well, try one’s hand at games of chance, take part in trendy parties, conclude a business, get informed about the political events or sharpen one’s intellectual skills. The social structure of the guests indicates that the Zadar coffeehouses played the role of a social and entrepreneur incubator of a kind. This was certainly the case with the Marcochia Coffeehouse, discussed here in more detail, which was opened in Zadar by Domenico Marcochia, entrepreneur and merchant of Venice.
The Venetian names for utensils and tableware used for preparing and enjoying coffee, which were introduced in the language in the period under study, have remained a part of the linguistic heritage of the east Adriatic up to the present. They represent a remnant of the times when the culture of coffee enjoying and coffeehouses came to be in Zadar.
Ključne riječi
Zadar; Adriatic sea; coffee; coffeehouse; maritime trade; Early Modern Age; 18th century
Hrčak ID:
340560
URI
Datum izdavanja:
8.12.2025.
Posjeta: 614 *