If a person from 1700 asked you your job, would they understand your answer, and if not, how would you explain it to them?

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I'm a barista, coffee houses were a relatively new thing in 1700. People from the Middle East and East Africa would probably understand "I make coffee", and maybe some very trendy Europeans as well (Wikipedia says the first coffee house in Europe opened in 1645 in Austria.)
If they weren't familiar with coffee, I'd say I make a beverage with the opposite properties of beer. It's hot and perks you up where beer is cold and dulls your senses.
(Random thought: how did beer refrigeration work pre-industrial revolution? Were our ancestors chugging lukewarm beer?)
- Ancestors? My friend, people drink lukewarm beer now.
- Ever hear of the giant insurance company, Lloyd's of London. It started as a coffee house.
  Back in the day, many people used coffee houses as their business office. Houses and streets were unmarked, and inviting a stranger to your home could be problematic. Meeting and making a deal at the coffee house was safer and simpler. Without a central post office, it was a lot easier to send a letter to 'John Doe care of Lloyd's' than to expect it to find your house.
  Pretty soon, folks got the idea of setting up companies to invest in ships to the New World. If one guy invested all his money in one ship, there was a reasonable chance that it would sink. If he got together with nine other people they could send out ten ships, and if only two made it back they'd still read a profit.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd%27s_of_London
  
  That was the best read I've had all day, thanks Sgt. Awesome!
  
  Look on Youtube for an old BBC series 'Connections."
  It's the history of science, showing how one change can cascade through time. To continue the story; the new insurance companies wanted their ships to survive. They studied the matter and figured out that pine tar was the best way to stop leaks. There were plenty of pine trees in the New World, so they contracted some Americans to make pine tar, promising to buy all they could deliver. The process had other byproducts, and eventually drinking coffee led to the creation of the chemical industry.
  
  Thanks!
  I found this, which I've only watched a few minutes of but is I suspect what you were referring to?
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ
  
  That's the one. Enjoy!
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://m.piped.video/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- I visited a brewery in Germany that was mined out of the bottom of a volcano. It was pretty fucking chilly underground there even in the dead of summer, so maybe that's where they kept it?
  Idk, I showed up to the wrong tour and I only know like 3 words in German so I had zero idea what was happening 98% of the time.
- Random thought: how did beer refrigeration work pre-industrial revolution?
  Cellars (and sometimes caves) were both popular and effective, even sometimes still used today.
- From my very small knowledge, yes, beer was consumed at room temperature. In Germany it still is, for example. Also, beer had less alcohol and was much more like bread in that it was nutritious and filling than what we have now.
  
  In Germany, people don't drink warm beer, if, like anywhere else, they can avoid it.

406 comments