it became subject to tax.

Venetian traders had introduced coffee to Europe by 1615, a few years later than tea which had appeared in 1610. Again its introduction aroused controversy in Italy when some clerics, like the mullahs of Mecca, suggested it should be excommunicated as it was the Devils work. However, Pope Clement VIII (1592- 1605) enjoyed it so much that he declared that coffee should be baptized to make it a true Christian drink.

The first coffee house opened in Venice in 1683. The famous Venice's Cafe Florian in the Piazza San Marco, established in 1720, is the oldest surviving coffee house in Europe. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries coffee houses proliferated in Europe. Nothing quite like the like the coffee houses, or caf?had ever existed before,the novelty of a place to enjoy a relatively inexpensive and stimulating beverage in convivial company established a social habit that has endured for over 400 years.

The first coffee house in England was opened in Oxford, not London, by a man called Jacob in 1650. A coffee club established near all Souls College eventually becoming the Royal Society. Londons first coffee house was in St. Michaels Alley and opened in 1652. And the most famous name in the world of insurance, Lloyds of London, began life as a coffee house in Tower Street, founded by Edward Lloyd in 1688 who used to prepare lists of ships that his clients had insured. With the rapid growth in popularity of coffee houses, by the 17th century the European powers were