Did you know that coffee is attributed to the Age of Enlightenment? 

Before coffee was widely distributed, the drink of choice was alcohol. Water was not safe to drink. Commoners and royalty alike would drink beer for breakfast and lunch, wine for dinner and finish the day with gin. Basically, people were drunk all the time.

In 1650, England’s first coffeehouse opened after coffee was imported from the East. Moving from a depressant to a stimulant saw a rise in intellectual ideas and creativity. Coffeehouses were seen as the meeting place for progressive thinkers.

So I wasn’t surprised how many of my friends in the creative field are coffee lovers. In this new series, I sit down with them and discuss their love for coffee, get them to tell me their daily coffee routine and share a cup or two of the thinking man’s drink. 

The Essential Man: Coffee Talk with Andrew Chen