Early coffee consumption in Europe came by way of seamen, travellers, merchants or soldiers who discovered the drink on their journeys.

Most likely, coffee was first brought to Europe by traders from the East who established outposts, small as they might have been, in places like Venice, Marseille, London and Amsterdam – indeed in all the major ports that were involved in global exchange.

William Harvey and Francis Bacon, both attached to the court of King James I, wrote about coffee and its effect on human physiology at the beginning of the 17th century.

Olfert Dapper, an Amsterdam physician travelling in Egypt and Persia with a group of Dutch merchants in the mid-17th century, wrote about the medicinal uses of coffee.

One of the first avenues of coffee's entry into Europe was as a pharmaceutical.