Think the Boston Tea Party made America a coffee-drinking nation? Historian Michelle McDonald reveals the truth: colonists were already choosing coffee over tea because it was cheaper.
Michelle Craig McDonald, the Librarian/Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society and author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States, explains how coffee shaped American identity long before the Revolution.
You’ll hear how Revolutionary-era women stormed a Boston warehouse to seize hoarded coffee and sell it at regulated prices. You’ll discover why Parliament protected coffee while taxing tea. And you’ll learn how enslaved Caribbean laborers made America’s favorite beverage possible.
From colonial coffee houses to debates about caffeine addiction in the early republic, discover how one imported commodity became distinctly American.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Episode Summary
Michelle Craig McDonald is Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society and a well-known scholar of commodities and trade in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. She’s the author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States.
Based on the research in her new book, Michelle explains how and why Americans came to drink coffee and build a culture around the hot beverage.
In our conversation, Michelle reveals:
1. Where coffee grew in Vast Early America, and why North Americans have always imported all of the coffee they drank
2. How enslaved laborers on Caribbean islands grew and harvested coffee beans for sale in Atlantic trade markets
3. How the American Revolution reshaped the relationship that Americans had with their hot beverages
What You’ll Discover
- Why American colonists drank more coffee (and chocolate) than tea
- How people flavored and served their coffee
- Why coffee has never been grown on the North American mainland
- The process for growing and harvesting coffee
- Why coffee grows best at higher elevations on Caribbean islands
- The enslaved laborers who grew coffee
- How merchants marketed and sold coffee
- The development of coffee culture
- The role of coffee houses and other public spaces
- Protests about coffee during the American Revolution
- How merchants smuggled coffee during the Revolution
- The “creole economy” of the early United States
- The impact of coffee on the Haitian Revolution
- How coffee culture changed in the early nineteenth century
Links to People, Places, and Publications
Time Warp Question
If the British Parliament had passed a law about importing and taxing coffee instead of tea in the 1770s, would the Sons of Liberty and other Patriots have been able to generate a similar level of protest about the drink?
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
🎧 Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 294: 1774: The Long Year of American Revolution
🎧 Episode 319: Cuba: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 401: Tea, Boycotts, & Revolution
Support Our Work
Love what you hear on Ben Franklin’s World? Support the show and help us keep history accessible, independent, and deeply researched. Make a tax-deductible donation at benfranklinsworld.com/donate.
Request a Topic
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com
When You’re Ready
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter
👩💻 BFW Listener Community
🌍 The History Explorers Club
Connect
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
Listen!
Enjoy the Podcast? Follow it!
| 
Sponsors
Say Thanks
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
* All book links are for the Ben Franklin’s World Bookshop, the official affiliate bookstore of Bookshop.org. By purchasing a book with our affiliate links, you help support this podcast.
Ben Franklin’s World is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. To advertise on Ben Franklin’s World contact sales@advertisecast.com.