Are you part of the new American café’ society? Author, journalist and gourmand Lucius Beebe coined the term “café society,” in the New York Herald Tribune in the 1920’s referring to a social group that frequents fashionable spots, such as nightclubs and cafés. Although originally used to refer to the glitterati of the 20’s and 30’s, coffee quickly became a social lubricant for the café society of the hipsters and beatniks of the 50’s and folk-singers of the 60’s.
Today a new American café’ society can be found at Starbucks, Peets and countless urban coffee shops and espresso bars across the country where wi-fied connected eyes rise now and again from behind laptops, tablets and smart phones. Let’s hope that technology doesn’t replace social interaction and that the world’s most popular beverage continues to fuel the emotion, imagination and creativity historically associated with café culture to remain an important social gathering point where people come to talk, write, read, entertain one another or pass the time with a good cup of coffee.
