Coffeehouse

   
    A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which focuses it's activity around serving hot beverages, primarily coffee and tea. It shares characteristics with a bar and restaurant but it differs from a cafeteria. Not only coffee and tea are served here, you can also find other hot beverages and some light snacking. Many coffee houses in the Middle East, and in West Asian immigrant districts in the Western world, offer shisha (nargile in Turkish and Greek), flavored tobacco smoked through a hookah.

    From a social point of view, the coffeehouse is considered to be the place where you can meet new people, hang out (individually and with friends), read, write, entertain one another or simply just to pass the time.

    As to when the first coffeehouse was opened there is no conclusive evidence, various legends involving the introduction of coffee to Istanbul at a "Kiva Han" in the late 15th century circulate in culinary tradition, but with no documentation. Coffeehouses in Mecca soon became a concern as places for political gatherings to the imams who banned them, and the drink, for Muslims between 1512 and 1524. In 1530 the first coffee house was opened in Damascus, and not much later, coffeehouses appeared in Cairo.

    In the 17th century, coffee appeared for the first time in Europe outside the Ottoman Empire, and coffeehouses were established and quickly became popular. The first coffeehouses reached Western Europe probably through the Kingdom of Hungary, and appeared in Venice, due to the trafficks between La Serenissima and the Ottomans; the very first one is recorded in 1645. The first coffeehouse in England was set up in Oxford in 1650 by a Jewish man named Jacob in the building now known as "The Grand Cafe". The place is in the present day a trendy cocktail bar, only a plaque on a wall still commemorates this place as being the first coffeehouse in England. 

    Cafes may have an outdoor section, a terrace or sidewalk, with seats, tables and parasols. This format is found in many European cafes. 

    The coffeehouse evolved hand in hand with the evolution of technology. When I say technology, I refer to computers or PCs. Modern cafes have included a Wi-Fi Hotspot or they offer everything from internet connection to computers in an internet cafe.