Western colonies displaced Middle Eastern coffee and sugar exports entirely
Evidence
By the late 18th century, when a Turk or an Arab indulged in a cup of sweetened coffee, in all probability the coffee was brought by Dutch merchants from Java, and the sugar by French or British merchants from the West Indies. Only the hot water was of local provenance. In the course of the 19th century, even that was doubtful, as Western companies dominated the rapidly expanding utilities in Middle Eastern cities. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1748
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- SHARE: The detail that ‘only the hot water was of local provenance’ in an 18th-century Middle Eastern cup of coffee is a perfect concrete image for a friend interested in economic history.
- ADDENDUM: Concrete instance of the producer-oriented vs consumer dynamics that parallels my ‘Grafting & Growth’ infrastructure piece — here commodity supply chains are the infrastructure.