Coffee!

[The Barrow-Wight]

In "The Hobbit" Bilbo serves coffee to the Dwarves. Where on Middle-earth did hobbits in the Shire get coffee???

[Gandalf_theGrey]

Here's an idea, my good Barrow Wight.

There are some who would whisper rumors that while pipeleaf was being exported from the Shire, coffee was being imported ... from the City of the Corsairs in Umbar, perhaps?

Not that I'd personally consider exchanging weeds for beans a good trade. smilies/wink.gif

My two pieces of mithril,

Gandalf the Grey

[Elrian]

Wonder if Juan Valdez is part Hobbit??? smilies/wink.gif Seriously though they either were growers of it like Old Tobey and Longbottom Leaf or it was something they learned from another race at some point. Didn't a Dwarf ask for some also, so they also had at least known of it. Maybe they traded, come to think of it coffee is a warm climate crop, and the Shire didn't seem to be the Costa Rica of ME.

[Galadrie1]

Elrian: I, too, was going to ask: Since it was the dwarves that asked for the coffee, where on Middle-earth did dwarves get coffee??? Southern Gondor would make sense, I suppose, climate-wise... but as for that area's connection with the Shire..?

[Evenstar1]

Maybe the Dwarves were more "Americanized" than the Hobbits, who, in English-fashion, drank tea?

In my opinion, the coffee beans were grown by the Dwarves: The heat from the deep-down recesses of the world (especially the recesses near the Balrog) would have been sufficiently warm enough for the growing of coffee beans. And the plants would have gotten their photosynthetic light from the gleaming mithril in the walls around them! smilies/biggrin.gif

As for the Hobbit's acquisition of the coffee, it probably came from Bree, via the Brandybucks, who traveled there on occasion.

[Elrian]

The problem with that is Moria was no more, and it was the only place where Mithril had been found. smilies/rolleyes.gif

[The Silver-shod Muse]

Ah yes, I can see it now...the Green Dwarves, growers of coffee and other fine subterranean products, ridiculed by the dwarves of gems and mithril, but good workers nonetheless.

Somehow, that just doesn't work. The Southrons with their slaves harvesting the beans on huge plantation-type farms owned by wealthy sahibs seems much more coherent and fitting.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Mr B-W,

How about this? Coffee wasn't the only anachronistic reference in the Shire, especially in the Hobbit. What about potatoes, tobacco, chimneys (not invented till the middle ages), clocks, Sam's gardening shears, hobbit mantlepieces, umbrellas, instruments like viols and clarinets that the Dwarves played? Even stirrups are questionable. There's also my two favorites--the dragon fireworks that "passed like an express train" and Sam's reference to "fish and chips." Bilbo's handkerchief could not have been known in England till the reign of Richard II, and his "silk waistcoat" would have to be imported to Europe from China in the fourteenth century (although there were sources of silk in the ancient world). Waste paper baskets were unknown in medieval Europe. The list goes on and on. I often wonder if the Shire had indoor plumbing courtesy of Arthur Crapper!!

Maybe all these came from the same place: Tolkien's fertile imagination, plus the tendency to describe the Shire with a slight Victorian/Edwardian patina. And maybe in some cases, Tolkien was dealing with Westron words that didn't have an exact English equivalent!! So he just translated them to the closest one he could find. Perhaps, coffee wasn't exactly what we think of today, but some kind of herbal drink that looked and functioned the same way.

Is anyone "bothered" by these anachronisms? It certainly doesn't bother me! One of the reasons I am fond of the Shire is that it has the feel of 19th century village life in England which makes it very different from every other place in Middle-earth. And the anachronisms are part of that.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[Evenstar1]

The problem with that is Moria was no more, and it was the only place where Mithril had been found.

Oops! Good point, Elrian!

Hmmm. Oh! I know! Maybe the Green Dwarves that The Silver-shod Muse mentioned had found their own Balrog to help them out (in whatever part of the world they were from). And maybe they had mithril, too, but were just uninterested in it. (Yes! That's it!) smilies/biggrin.gif

[Birdland]

Tolkien was dealing with Westron words that didn't have an exact English equivalent!! So he just translated them to the closest one he could find. Perhaps, coffee wasn't exactly what we think of today, but some kind of herbal drink that looked and functioned the same way.

During the Civil War, the Confederates desperately sought a suitable coffee substitute. Dried and/or parched sweet potato, peas, okra seeds, hemp seeds (my vote), and rye were all thought to be pretty close to the real thing. Since the above could all be considered fine Shire agricultural products, I'd have to say that there's no telling what them Hobbits were drinkin'!

The Southrons with their slaves harvesting the beans on huge plantation-type farms owned by wealthy sahibs seems much more coherent and fitting.

Since we wouldn't want to consider Hobbits to be having dealings with the Enemy, perhaps a source of the "real Rio" would be the Kingdom of Dor-en-Ernil. It's far enough south to grow coffee, and with the topography, they could even have "mountain grown" beans.

Unless...could it be that Isengar Took, the first Hobbit to go to sea, was actually doing a little blockade running? Always wondered how the Tooks came by their dough.

Anyway, for the sake of the Hobbit's sleep patterns, I hope they had decaf. (Note the time of this post. smilies/biggrin.gif )

[Manwe Sulimo]

But always remember....this is a fictional world (unless, like me, you believe it really did happen, but it's all at least 5,000 years ago, and there was the whole "Dagor Dagorath" thingy which erased all sign of earlier civilization....but that's another story), so they may not have evolved as far (or as fast) as us in some areas....personally, I think it's the sign of a greater civilization: they're at least 5 centuries more advanced in domestic instruments than weapons smilies/smile.gif.

[Lumbule]

I think the coffee mentioned in the Hobbit is malt coffee for I simply can`t imagine them (especially the dwarfs) to know real coffee.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Maybe the Dwarves were more "Americanized" than the Hobbits, who, in English-fashion, drank tea?

Actually, tea doesn't grow too well in temperate regions either. Like silk-making, the idea was imported from China, and the leaves are grown in Africa and Asia. In fact almost every aspect of the Hobbits' life is an anachronism; but for me that adds to its appeal.

In wartime Germany, they used to drink ersatz coffee, which was made from acorns. Perhaps that's what Bilbo gave to Thorin's company, although he hated guests if it was. smilies/wink.gif

[Frodo Baggins]

I personally think coffee is nasty and only drink it occasionally with a LOT of sugar and cream.

HMMM you know dear Barrow Wight I have wondered the same thing. I don't know if ot was a "substitute" or the real thing. However, I think that the South farthing may have been warm enought in summer for a little bit of coffee.

Out of curiosity, Is there any evidence that supports that hobbits had indoor plumbing???

[Manwe Sulimo]

Probably not...they were too busy with their silver spoons and gardens.

[The Barrow-Wight]

From www.coffee.com: (http://www.coffee.com:)
There are three primary coffee growing regions--the Pacific, the Americas, and Africa and Arabia--each with its own unique techniques and history.

These regions would correspond with Mordor and Harad. That's a long way to go for a cup of Java, but its possible that a wealthy hobbit such as Bilbo Baggins could afford such a luxury. I just worry that such purchases ultimately benefitted the Dark Lord and the Haradrim as it filled their coffers.

It wouldn't be the first time such vices help the wicked. Today's newspaper had an article explaining how a substantial amount of money spent on drugs on the streets of America has made its way into the hands of the terrorists that threaten the nation.

Boycott drugs and coffee now!!!

[ork _huntr]

look now i will have my dope and coffee barrowight! have you ever been to louisiana? we grow dope and coffee in our closets! it's not to terribly hard ( the dope not the coffee) isn't hard to grow in a closet. my great grandpa( god rest his soul) taught me how to do both because my house stands where his farm was when it was legal to grow The Weed. " the plants where so tall and pretty then in the summer the city folk would come an cut um dowm 20 dalla a bushel." sam gamgee if he were a gardener could EASILY grown both. smilies/biggrin.gif smilies/rolleyes.gif

[The Barrow-Wight]

Just so you know, drug talk is not permitted here on the Downs, even when it seems to be on topic. But we can continue this discussion by addressing the indoor growing of plants.

Unless I'm mistaken, indoor plant growing needs proper UV lighting, which I am quite sure hobbits were not technologically capable of. Regardless, to grow a plant indoors still requires a seed or original plant, so we would be back to asking where coffee might have grown in Middle-earth, if it did at all.

Those plants-of-which-we-will-no-longer-speak did not spontaeneously spring in your oh-so-fertile closet. 'Nuff said about that.

[Lostgaeriel]

Gee, Mr. Barrow-wight, I would think that if the topic of drugs is taboo, surely the topic of international politics would be. But since you brought it up I must counter your comments:

It wouldn't be the first time such vices help the wicked. Today's newspaper had an article explaining how a substantial amount of money spent on drugs on the streets of America has made its way into the hands of the terrorists that threaten the nation.

Boycott drugs and coffee now!!!

by suggesting you read Noam Chomsky's books, starting with Chomsky on MisEducation and then 9-11. The cause of terrorism against (and by!) the U.S. is far more complicated than most people think. Viggo's Perceval Press (http://www.percevalpress.com) website recommends Chomsky's books.

Better for now if you buy fair-trade coffee from companies such as Bridgehead (http://www.bridgehead.ca).

Hope no one is overly offended. smilies/frown.gif

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. - John Lennon

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: Lostgaeriel ]

[The Barrow-Wight]

Just to clarify, my post was in no way serious and required no rebuke or suggested reading. And since I've no idea what you were getting at, I'm going wait for another cofee post. smilies/rolleyes.gif

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: The Barrow-Wight ]

[red]

I completely agree with Sharon.

I make this post in honor of Estelyn. smilies/wink.gif

[Bêthberry]

And from coffeeuniverse.com (a bit of a biased source, one might say):

A Brief History of Coffee

[Coffee History] Coffee was first discovered in Eastern Africa in an area we know today as Ethiopia. A popular legend refers to a goat herder by the name of Kaldi, who observed his goats acting unusually frisky after eating berries from a bush. Curious about this phenomena, Kaldi tried eating the berries himself. He found that these berries gave him a renewed energy. The news of this energy laden fruit quickly spread throughout the region.

Monks hearing about this amazing fruit, dried the berries so that they could be transported to distant monasteries.They reconstituted these berries in water, ate the fruit, and drank the liquid to provide stimulation for a more awakened time for prayer.

Coffee berries were transported from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula, and were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen.

From there, coffee traveled to Turkey where coffee beans were roasted for the first time over open fires. The roasted beans were crushed, and then boiled in water, creating a crude version of the beverage we enjoy today.

Coffee first arrived on the European continent by means of Venetian trade merchants. Once in Europe this new beverage fell under harsh criticism from the Catholic church. Many felt the pope should ban coffee, calling it the drink of the devil. To their surprise, the pope, already a coffee drinker, blessed coffee declaring it a truly Christian beverage.

Coffee houses spread quickly across Europe becoming centers for intellectual exchange. Many great minds of Europe used this beverage, and forum, as a springboard to heightened thought and creativity.


This reminds me of a thread I read some months ago here, that the journey from the Shire to Minas Tirith is actually a journey from Edwardian/Victorian England south to Renaissance Venice and thence back to Bronze Age battles. So, it is not much of a jump across the Mediterranean to what would be Harad/ Ethiopia. Thus, it would appear that both Child and Gandalf can have their coffee and drink it too. Now, if only I can find a picture of a coffee cup from an Anglo-Saxon barrow .... ;)

Bethberry

[Gandalf_theGrey]

How's this, Bethberry?

Look what I dug up:

http://www.evileyes.com/images/gifts_mug.jpg

This 10 ounce black ceramic coffee mug is adorned with the winged-skull Death's Head and inscribed in Latin, "Memento Te Esse Mortalum" (Remember You Are Mortal). How's that for a sobering thought to accompany your morning cup of coffee?
http://www.evileyes.com/gifts.html

Barrow Wight:

As for the filtering of coffee into the Shire ultimately benefitting the coffers of Mordor and Harad, a quite legitimate worry indeed, and another unfortunate symptom of Arda marred. However, let's say said coffee was coming in through Saruman. His tendency would be I think to prefer dealing with Hobbit merchants (and through a layer or two of go-betweens at that) who didn't ask too many questions about where coffee is grown as they traded Longbottom Leaf for those oh-so-exotic aromatic beans of morning brew.

Child of the 7th Age: I'm also fond of the anachronistic "passed like an express train". One can always point to poetic license based on the phrase being a simile. smilies/smile.gif

~~ Gandalf the Grey

[mark12_30]

Bilbo, being the fabulously wealthy son of the fabulous Beladonna Took, could afford to import whatever he liked from wherever he liked.

Those below the coffee-importing--social-- strata drank a brew made from Roasted Chicory Root. (Geh!)

--Helen

A much less fun answer sould be that when he was writing that chapter, Tolkien hadn't even realised taht elves would show up or that Gondolin's sowrds would make an entry... so he didn't yet know when he was writing about.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

red, I have no idea what you're talking about! smilies/tongue.gif (But I'm posting anyway because I think what I have to say is much too interesting to the general public to be relegated to a private message...)
[This post will self-destruct when the joke has worn off - which should be fairly soon! smilies/wink.gif ]

[ork _huntr]

the indoor growing of plants barrow wight is slightly more ancient than UV lights. smilies/rolleyes.gif sorry about the dope thing didn't know. smilies/cool.gif anyway on the subject ( as i have wandered off it) coffee can be grown without UV lights it just takes extreme patience. i'm not sure how but it's been done. oh and i knew a guy with a coffee cup that had momento mori ( remember you will die) on it. smilies/evil.gif

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Ah! I thought of the Saruman connection, but he was not interested in the Shire until 1418.

I say the dwarves are clearly responsible for the trade in coffee, as they were the only ones who travelled the east road and had dealings with Hobbits. Many, if not most, dwarves would not ask questions about a luxury item so profitable.

Here's a theory, one you may dispute:

Coffee originated in Numenor, a gift from the Valar.

It's cultivation was freely taught to the people of Far Harad prior to the time of Ar-Pharazon as a form of economic aid.

The latter kings of Numenor however goosed the profit-margin in coffee trade (Dwarves, due to their hard-working nature, particularly prized it) by first having prisoners work the fields, and later slaves. Unfortunately.

The cultivation of coffee in smaller quantities and of lesser quality was also found not far from the city of Osgiliath, in what is now known as Ithilien.

After the fall of Numenor, the trade in coffee fell off dramatically, though the fields near Osgiliath continued to produce the luxury item for the private use of those of the royal lineage of Gondor. The drinking of coffee became a habit of kings, much like the wearing of cloth died indigo in our own medieval history. This habit of coffee being a 'royal' drink was carried on later by the stewards of Gondor (whether they liked the beverage or no), though it was abandoned in the North kingdom. Citizens of Gondor would have been very surprised to say the least at Bilbo's casual use of the beverage for guests. The very fact he had it at all would have stunned them.

But dwarves continued to trade in lands far to the east, and the formerly slave-worked fields of Numenor were for a time worked by free men of the south, who traded their crop to the northeast of the known lands of Middle Earth.

The risks in trading in those lands were rather high for the dwarves, but the coffee trade, cheap and plentiful in the Far East and South, expensive and rare in Middle Earth, was exceptionally profitable. It was relatively light, travelled easily. Passed as ordinary beans to the ignorant, thus avoiding all kinds of taxes, tarrifs and thievery. More than one dwarf expedition, robbed of their gold by bandits, came through with their coffee profits intact. So no dwarf caravan from the east failed to include this "insurance policy."

Sadly, as the power of Sauron grew, the coffee fields were once again worked by slaves, and did in fact finance his war. We must note however that though the trade did not altogether disappear, the proliferation of orcs in the East - due to Sauron - crippled the trade, and Sauron had little profit from Middle Earth because of it.

This is why Bilbo in the late 1300s had coffee, but Frodo in 1418 never mentioned it.

The coffee drinkers in Dale and the Lonely Mountain suffered most. That's when the acorn, chicory and other substitutions were tried, to little effect. The defeat of Sauron was greeted with relief for many reasons.

-Maril

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: Marileangorifurnimaluim ]

[Birdland]

Wow, Maril! Bravo! Where did you get your info? The "Deeping-Wall Street Journal"? smilies/biggrin.gif

[Nar]

That's beautiful, Maril! smilies/cool.gif The gift of coffee itself may have been a consoling substitute for those stirring, earthy ent-draughts. Knowing the entwives were gone or fled, or soon would be (can't remember the exact chronology) and the ents withdrawn deep into the forest, Yavenna took pity on the free peoples and sent coffee berries forth into middle earth to rekindle the hearts of man, dwarf and hobbit.

[Mister Underhill]

The risks in trading in those lands were rather high for the dwarves, but the coffee trade, cheap and plentiful in the Far East and South, expensive and rare in Middle Earth, was exceptionally profitable. It was relatively light, travelled easily. Passed as ordinary beans to the ignorant, thus avoiding all kinds of taxes, tarrifs and thievery. More than one dwarf expedition, robbed of their gold by bandits, came through with their coffee profits intact. So no dwarf caravan from the east failed to include this "insurance policy." I smell RPG (and the aroma of slowly roasting Far Harad beans).

Your speculations could also provide the basis for a new theory regarding the Paths of the Dead. The Oathbreakers: restless spirits or deprived coffee drinkers?

[Rimbaud]

You all miss the evidence. It is before your very eyes. Elementary, my dear Tooks.

Study: 'Caffeine'. An anagram is "Fine face". The fairest of face were of course the Vanyar, as is explicit in their name. This foolproof argument should lead such razor-sharp minds as yours to discern the true bean-exporters of Middle Earth.

[Evenstar1]

Interesting, Rimbaud! But how would Bilbo have acquired it? Bilbo didn't know any Elves -- let alone High Elves -- and Elves and Dwarves hated each other (at least at that time, I thought). We need more to your story. (Please? smilies/biggrin.gif)

For now, Maril has given us the most complete history!

[mark12_30]

RPG?

Too good!

After all this talk of canonicity, canon-friendliness, etc etc-- Here's a place where Tolkien's canon gives you (and perhaps therefore us) express permission to go wild.

Maril, I'll definitely take a cup. I'm not normally a coffee drinker except on special occasions-- and this strikes me as one. Heavy on the soymilk, please. Er sorry, too strange. Here, I just happen to have some. Sugar too, please. Thank you.

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

smilies/biggrin.gif The dwarves will gladly give all of their left-over soy-coffee substitutes. Contrary to what vegetarians seem to think, soy cannot be made into anything. smilies/wink.gif

Gosh, now I'm tempted to RPG.. what is it you liked about this idea? Do you really want to be part of a dwarven merchant caravan to parts unknown, with sketchy maps, and word of mouth from boasting (and thus only slightly trustworthy) dwarf acquaintances? Why, you could get lost, wander into strange customs... and how on earth would you talk a band of dwarves into letting you join them anyways?

[Gandalf_theGrey]

Actually, coffee also happens to be one of the items in a certain pony cart belonging to a certain Podo Cotton in a certain RPG called "On Patrol." Podo first showed up at the Trade Inn at Sarn Ford. As it happens, the RPG ended before anyone searched the pony cart newly arrived from Podo's recent merchant excursion "away South."

However, the grounds ("coffee grounds") have been laid for further development of this subplot in future RPGs ... * insert mood music to build suspense *

Coincidental indeed. smilies/smile.gif

Maril:

Your RPG idea sounds intriguing as well, and I look forward to reading, and possibly participating in, anything you come up with. The more the merrier, eh? * good-natured bow *

Gandalf the Grey

[ September 12, 2002: Message edited by: Gandalf_theGrey ]

[Ransom]

... and how on earth would you talk a band of dwarves into letting you join them anyways?

Easy. Play a dwarf, and start out with them. smilies/smile.gif

If you're starting a RP, I look foward to it.

[ September 12, 2002: Message edited by: Ransom ]

[Thenamir]

Consider the possibility that coffee, like the good leaf from the Shire, was being intercepted by Saruman for his own uses, but not for himself to drink personally. Why not? One of Saruman's powers that he uses to great effect is the power of that oily-smooth voice. If he was wired, talking too fast, perhaps stumbling or stuttering over words (come on, don't pretend like you don't know the type), the effect on the hearers would be greatly diminishedm as you might well imagine.

That leaves open the question of why Saruman would require all the coffee that he apparantly intercepted or co-opted fromt he trade routes. I have a theory to propound which might hold water. I submit it for the cross-examination of the forum.

Consider the Uruk-Hai. They needed to have exceptional strength, superhuman speed, and long endurance for the tasks for which Saruman planned to use them. What better than massive amounts of caffeine, extracted directly from the coffee beans? You thought that was white paint they were slapping on each other in the movie? I say it was pure white caffeine powder in a base which would allow it not only to stick to the skin, but to be absorbed thru the skin slowly, a sort of timed-release caffeine. Remember how they reacted in a sort of ecstatic frenzy when it was slapped onto them? Transcutaneous caffeine infusions would explain that behavior quite nicely.

It is also well known that caffeine is a pain-reliever (significant amounts of caffeine are components of Excedrine, BC Powders, and the "migraine" formulas of many common over-the-counter pain relievers) excessive amounts of caffeine might render a person (or an orc, for that matter) almost impervious to pain. Witness the Uruk-hai Lurtz who was impaled by Aragorn's sword thru the midsection, but merely sneered at Aragorn and pulled the sword deeper to show his indifference to the injury.

The decaffeinated beans left over from Saruman's uses were then distributed back thru the trade channels leading to places that Saruman planned to invade, such as Rohan and Minas Tirith -- the depression and despondency of King Theoden can probably be traced directly to the fact that he was unwittingly being served decaf until Hama retrieved some *real* coffee from Wormtongue's chest (along with Theoden's sword). If Denethor had had some of the better arabica beans instead of Saruman's brew, he might have been able to overcome his suicidal depression and lead his people again.

I leave the further study of this topic to clearer heads than my own...I need to go make me a good cup o' joe...

[mark12_30]

Eh, I can be a bit slow o nthe uptake some days, but-- if Saruman is waylaying the coffee shipments, then isn't that tantamount to an act of war?

General Maril?

(fumbles in closet looking for sword)

[Dwarin Thunderhammer]

Ai, Sarumans trechary ran deep. If we can trace Theodens depression to Saruman's coffee then certantly Denethor's madness was a result too. Denethor looked into the palantir. He must have seen the coffe of Saruman. The desire for the gift of cofee overcame him. He eventually turned mad because of it. Poor Denethor had no chance.

[mark12_30]

Sounds to me like this coffee shortage is escalating to an international catastrophe. Gandalf is off on one of his immportant tangents-- something about some halfling and a golden bauble of some sort-- leaving the weighty matters of world peace and free trade to us. (Strapping on backpack)

Ho, Maril, give us some rousing speech or enlightening discourse.

(struggles with sword-belt...) Drat, backwards.

[Birdland]

All this talk of coffee importation begs the question: did they have mules in Middle-Earth, because they are the traditional beast of burden for such fare. I have yet to see mention of a donkey in M-E, and if the Rohanians had mules, they'd never admit it.

Oooooooh, and what about those biscotti? Could it be that the Elven lembas was, in fact, a crunchy, almond-flavored flatbread?

Though I suppose the Dwarves preferred crullers.

[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]

[Man-of-the-Wold]

Well the are some incongruities that this raises.

MIDDLE-EARTH TRADE - FIRST INCONGRUITY

One is of commerce and the fact that in the LoTR one gets an image of a cut off world with relatively little in the way of trade, but I think that some of that is of recent cause (and overemphasized for dramatic effect) in that the war in Ithilien has only lately gotten hot, and Bilbo's time in the Hobbit was two human generations earlier.

But still, despite the distances across essentially uninhabited lands it is not unreasonable to have trade of certain commodities. Clearly, in the years after Smaug, dwarves and men are conducting business from Dorwinion to Bree. And, all that coastline was surely plied in a simple way. The elves of Lindon needn't have been completely isolated and through intermediaries could have traded with others by sea, and certainly with certain more mercantile-inclined Hobbits, such as Farmer Maggot. With Bilbo and Frodo we have independently wealthy types not really engaged beyond the final purchase.

So, what I think you have is an early-late Middle-Ages model where most economic activity is decidedly local and agrarian, and that's fine for almost all needs and wants. But various things that are not too bulky are traded up and down the line through intermediaries, whose markups are very modest my modern standards. But clearly, something like coffee might have been a bit of luxury, but affordable for a Baggins or dwarves in the company of Thorin Oakenshield of Durin's line. So, even if it came from Umbar or South Gondor, from folks who didn't give a camel's patooty about "The Dark Lord," between producer and consumer were many informal layers. Think of modern narcotics trade.

The biggest issue would not have been distance and communication, there are always folks ready to make the journey, and see if someone is interested in their goods. The real challenge would be the lack of clear monetary exchange and a reliance on barter, debts and some exchange of recognized units of species.

One thing that would suggest that interaction was until the last forty years of the Third Age not uncommon is the fact that Westron, the Common Tongue was so intelligible across so great an area of the Northwest Lands.

NOW WHERE WOULD THIS FIT INTO OUR HISTORY?

This incongruity is summed up by remembering this to be fantasy, that is beguiling non-fantastical, at times.

Clearly, Hobbits at least have rudimental clocks and other things that are technologically post-Medieval, and some of the footstuffs and fabrics are things that only entered European culture after extensive cntact with the Americas or the Orient.

Tolkien is not necessarily trying to create a Medieval world that ever necessarily existed. It is Middle-Earth not the Middle Ages.

Over more than six thousand years he is modeling military technology, political systems, codes of honor and so forth on a period of time that existed for all but two hundred years in the kingdoms of Alba, Cumbria, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent and Wessex.

He is looking at a very "English" world, not so much "Britain" that was Celtic and potentially Arthurian, and God forbid! ... not the Normanized world that most of us think of with Medieval England, but rather for the most part "Anglo-Saxon" which is what he taught, that nexus of fresh Christian fervor and Northern heroism.

Beyond this model, he is really in all else shooting for a merely pre-Industrial countryside world in terms of lifestyles, attitudes, culture and so forth. It is not so much primitive as rustic, and in some parts of Europe would not have been much different whether the year was 1900 or 490.

That some merchandise, metallurgy and devices in the Books were not widespread in Europe until the 17th Century, and yet things like cotton, printing and gunpowder are seemingly absent is curious, but it is a fantasy world, that is only like ours.

But in essence we underappreciate how little most peoples lives really changed for millenia before the Industrial Age of the mid 19th Century. The question is what does Tolkien capture and recast that is so dear about Middle-Earth, and whether or not in some deeper sense it reflects anything that really ever existed?

[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Man-of-the-Wold ]

[Birdland]

Interesting thoughts, M.O.W. It alsmost deserves a thread of its own, regarding Tolkien's choices as to what he included or didn't include in mythological "Britain". (I always wondered about the lack of the printing press, myself.)

The real challenge would be the lack of clear monetary exchange and a reliance on barter, debts and some exchange of recognized units of species.
I can only assume that the people of Middle-Earth and parts South believed in the "gold standard". Various countries may have had their own versions of coin, but if it was gold, it was good. Some measure of worth may have been decided on, based on weight.

Possibly, a luxury item such as coffee must have been "worth its weight in gold."

And of course, "jools" could close a deal as well.

[Sharkû]

-> That other "anachronism" thread (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001909)
I'd like to shamelessly reiterate my musings made there that such possible anachronisms can just be translations, and that the cosmology of Middle-Earth need not be consistent with what is traditioned history from our point of view.
Also, I'd like to point to statements such as in the foreword to HoME VI which relativate the importance of The Hobbit and the early LotR chapters for the (canon of the) Legendarium.

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Sharkey, old man! Too rarely do you grace us with your presence. smilies/wink.gif

M-o-t-Wold, ah, but if there were no currency, then how do we explain Frodo's purse in Bree and his concerns that he didn't have enough to coin to pay such a rogue as Aragorn? Hm? smilies/smile.gif Or is that something only the Shire has?
(like umbrellas.)
Agreed however, that in the barbarian Far East we would need to barter. What do you think the West has that the East needs, Man of the World, er, Wold?

To tell you the truth, RPG-wise I find anything set after the War of the Ring distressing, all the elves leaving... But there was quite a boom-time in Dale and the Lonely Mountain after the death of Smaug, n'est pas? All sorts of abandoned trade routes opening up. And the Necromancer of Dol Guldur gone (or so it seems). We would have to find sponsorship of course, such ventures are expensive, do 'market research' (ask up and down our trade routes a year beforehand). Dwarves typically apprentice to a family member for at least a year or two. There is the traditional reading of omens - dwarves are as superstitious as baseball players and gamblers.

Shall we start with the scrying?

-Maril

[ September 15, 2002: Message edited by: Marileangorifurnimaluim ]

[bombur]

Man of the Wold is right.

However I’ll make some notes.

- Purchase did not historically suffice to bring about types like Frodo and Bilbo. Such lifestyle and security as theirs (and that of some of their peers) requires not so much a monetary wealth, but steady income. Land and tradegoods were source of that in the earlier times but both require work to produce sustenance, even if Frodo and Bilbo had been slavemasters, they would have had to work supervising their cotton fields. Their lifestyle of ”idle class” requires advanced banking of 1600’s at least when it became a possibility to inherit a ”living interrest.” Earlier generations of Bagginses have created a nest egg that gives Bilbo and Frodo the option of becomning self made academics, gentleman poets and loremasters.

- Clocks – Mechanical clocks & locks were not invented till WAY latter era then middle ages, matches evident in the hobbit I’d estimate were invented around 1800’s. They had been invented in middle earth nevertheless. Dwarves have the requirement skills of metallurgy/chemistry and they do trade, those mines are not self sufficient. After all were clocks invented in middle earth before they were in ours or was it rather that muskets were invented after they were in ours? Eh? Different world.

- Coffee? Shire has temperate environment so coffee cannot grow there. Middle earth has less ragged coastline then middle ages Europe.Therefore structure of land trade would be more advanced and that of seatrade less. Trade is not discussed in the epic as it is everyday business. It is not as interresting or romantic for hobbit historians as it was for those of middle ages europe, percisely because it is more routine and structured and caravans of adventurous traders do not travel thousands of kilometers with news and tales. Hobbits might well have sold leaf, textiles & foodstuffs to Bree and bought other things from there. Maybe only Bucklanders (right translation I hope) who were considered strange traded with Bree and other hobbits with bucklanders. All of this routine trade happens in small hops of few dozen miles. Breemen get coffee by buying it from southern neighbours who buy it from southern neighbours who buy... It would have courced by several dozens of hands each time increasing in value just a bit before reaching shire. Bilbo must have felt pride in being able to offer the dwarwes coffee though he himself preferred one of the many local variations of (herbal?) tea. Maybe someone in Harad would have felt the same pride in being able to seat ones guests on hobbitmade nettle-textile mats... without even knowing what kind of creatures made them, only that they were from the far north and were wonderfully soft. After all there were no inns like prancing pony in the middle age society either. Travellers were rare occurance and they came from afar. In middle earth they are daily occurance and come from the closeby village.

- Bilbos silken clothes – imports from China? Potatoes from America? No. Silk could have, and nowadays is manufactured in Europe, the limiting factor is not the climate in China, but the spread of silkenworm. In ME there are no places called China or Europe or America. Silk cloth was manufactured by hobbits or men from silk harvested from silkenworms native to Eriador of middle earth. Same goes to potatoes.

- Stirrups and scale mail? What comes to the low point of tech in ME, several types of armor historically made obsolite by plate mail (400-700? AD) ar used. Warchariot is used and Lance is not. This implies that stirrups have not been invented and also explains why battles are usually fought afoot exept for some masterfull horse-people like rohirrim and easterlings, who use swords and spears for charges and mounted archery for skirmishes. All of this would date the military tech of ME to level corresponding our date definately preceeding 700AD.

All things like this lead to simple conclusions. By inclusion of things like clocks Tolkien wishes to emphasise that this world is not that of ours of any period. Middle earth is basically what our world could have been if wars only had occurred once in few hundreds of years or so and the great expeditions and industrial revolution not at all. It has thousands of years of history and devlopment along theese lines and trade, botany, agriculture, artisanly crafts, social organisations etc are highly developed. It cannot be compared to our world where socially developed artisan society is contradiction in terms. Our world pretty much transcended from self sustained life in homemade clothes directly to industrial eras mail catalogue shirts. The shire is pretty much anachronistic utopia.

Janne Harju

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Birdie, the gold-standard is probably the rule. smilies/wink.gif There are clearly coins in the Shire, and thus likely the same or similar are used in Bree. I think there is probably no universal standard, which can work for and against an intrepid dwarven caravan, plying trade in the far east.

Mark12_30, Child of the 7th Age asked me if she could use the coffee idea for an RPG she and Mithadan are working on. I've been toying with the idea of starting a merchantile RPG, but only toying with it. I think I should participate first in an RPG before having the gall to start one. smilies/wink.gif

Bombur, lighten up. If you had read the entire thread you would know that this is not a debate but a lighthearted romp. If your English were a little better you would have read my good friend M-o-t-Wold's drily amused, tongue in cheek tone. If your post was intended to be playful, but your English can't quite carry it off: use the smilies. That's what they're for.

-Maril

[Birdland]

I think I should participate first in an RPG before having the gall to start one.
Oooooh! Oooooh! Join one of ours, Maril! We could call it "Coffee, Tea, or Mîm?"

[bombur]

Lighten up? Is that something edible? smilies/rolleyes.gif

I did read the thread, did not think to debate, but ponder. Sorry.

JH

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Birdie, okay! But only if I can play some character that doesn't belong at all, like a cagey, slightly overweight (and very eccentric) dwarf, too old to be going on adventures, but too rich to deny. Especially when the company's down on their luck.

What adventures do you recommend? smilies/smile.gif

bombur, 'lighten up' is something you drink, in fact, it's put in coffee: non-dairy creamer. It was given to the elves by the Valar in YT 200, before the introduction of coffee to the men of Numenor. The elves have yet to thank them for the vile stuff... it was the Hobbits, the Hornblowers in fact who were the first ones to put it in coffee. I think Toma Hornblower's exact words were: "well, if that don't disguise the taste, then nothing will."

-Maril

[Birdland]

Maril - The Valar invented "Coffee-Mate"?

All my illusions have been shattered.

[Nar]

The Valar invented Non-dairy creamer? Your posts are a constant revelation, Maril. smilies/biggrin.gif
Birdie, perhaps the Valar didn't intend the stuff to be drunk: coffee-mate might have been originally intended as a poultice to smear on Balrog-wounds before binding them up.

[Rimbaud]

To facilitate the healing of, perhaps, a broken wing? A difficult patient, I fear.

[Mister Underhill]

If only Fëanor had stayed faithful and survived. The invention of espresso, ice-blended mochas, et al may have come millenia sooner.

[Bêthberry]

Wishful thinking, I tell you, folks. You've overlooked what Unfinished Tales has to say about Saruman's activities in The Shire. smilies/wink.gif

Bethberry

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[Rimbaud]

I'll take a double-whipped, caffeine free Noldocinno, with a sprinkle of Silmaril. Make it a large and bill to: Rimbaud, West Beleriand. (Hah! That'll fool them. They'll never fnd my old house now...)

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]

[piosenniel]

Rimbaud

I know EXACTLY where that is located, and will be sending the Oarni to collect directly!

[Mister Underhill]

Hmm... those Silmaril sprinkles don't come cheap, either. I hear Angband welcomes fugitives on the run, and collection agents can almost never track you down in one of their deep pits. Of course, the downside is you could end up rooming with a Balrog, but hey -- if you can't do the time...

P.S. -- caffeine-free?! That is the brew of Mordor; I think you could probably get yourself shunned from Valinor for serving decaf to guests.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[Birdland]

You are all a bunch of wussy Starbuck Elves (You know, the ones that sailed West, but turned right at Seattle.)

I like my coffee like my Nazguls: strong and black.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]

[Mister Underhill]

You and me both, Birdie! I'm sipping some of that old black Joe as I type this. But I can very well imagine elves drinking prissy fou-fou drinks.

[Rimbaud]

I'm with the strong, black crowd. Or, as Eddie Izzard put it: 'I like my women like I like my coffee...in a plastic cup.' However, Noldocinno seemed irresistable at the time, funny how life turns out. To stay vaguely within the boundaries of on-topic-atude, was there trade 'twixt Grey Havens and further West of any description? Express or implied.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]

[red]

*Cranks up her new Gaggia Espresso Maker*

[Gandalf_theGrey]

Hullo Bethberry,

I trust you're not including me among those "wishful-thinking folks."

From an earlier private conversation that you and I had, you know of my awareness of Saruman's involvement in the Shire early on as per Unfinished Tales. I have indeed based both my posts in this thread as well as my entire On Patrol RPG on the inspiration I received from Unfinished Tales. Hence the underlying premise of Saruman's henchmen (whom I referred to as "smugglers" in the RPG) causing trouble along the roads. Thank you for pointing out that literary basis here. smilies/smile.gif

I look forward to joining you at the Bonfire Glade Picnic sometime tonight, my friend! smilies/smile.gif

* bows most cordially *

Gandalf the Grey

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Gandalf_theGrey ]

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Have we insider trade information on early activities of Saruman in the Shire, circa Bilbo's era, Mr. Gandalf? Won't that get you in trouble with the MEC? (Maia Exchange Commission)

-Maril

[Rimbaud]

Due to a prior complaint, filed by Shire Access Management (S.A.M.), MEC's action is in second place and may not be heard this year. S.A.M.'s action comprises dual complaints from Baggins Industrial Legacies (Baggins Oil), or B.I.L.B.O., and the Farthing Real Oil Distributors and Outfitters, F.R.O.D.O.

Once these actions have been put before the Internal Suspicious Tampering And Relocation Industrial tribunal (the I.S.T.A.R.I. trbunal) and dealt with, the MEC action may proceed.

[Mithadan]

With due respect, Rimbaud, the jurisdictional precedents are quite clear here. In fact, Saruman himself as an emissary of the Valar qualifies for diplomatic immunity and may only be tried by a court of his own jurisdiction. Let's see the highest court in Valinor is...uh oh, Mandos. Objection withdrawn, proceed.

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

If it were Tulkas on the other hand...

[Carnëiach]

ah yes treachery through coffe, the sweetest kind...

just passing through and saw the word coffee- my mouth wouldnt let me stop but ill, um, be leaving...now...

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Welcome to the Downs! All coffee-drinkers are doubly welcome. In this thread at least.

-Maril

[Man-of-the-Wold]

Well, this is quite the runaway topic. I'm glad to have spiced it up. ... Hmmmm? Spices? I should research what herbs & spice do and do not get cited in the books.

Good points. I think Bombur has excellent points that must be given more study. I do believe that 5th century Goth's had stirrups, but it is a reasonable deduction to say that Middle-Earth never did.

There are a lot of good things for new topics. One that I would start is based on my observation that the commonality of Westron would point to a world much better interconnected through commerce and so forth over from the latter Second Age through most of the Third Age. Of course, it is also a bit of a literary convenience not unlike the ubiquitous of English among countless planets in TV/film ... {two words, begin with Star __}

On the question of money, it is quite clear that a number of different coins of gold and silver ("species") were used and recognized across large (rather empty!) areas of Middle-Earth, as the exchanges at Bree indicate, not to mention the wealth that Bilbo and Frodo had. Although they may have rented land, from which was derived income, more would have had to been said if that was a big part of their "wealth".

No, I just wanted to point out that in comparison to, say, even the "Gold Standard" world of one to two centuries ago, much less our modern world, that trade would have been somewhat handicapped by the lack of clearly regular forms of money as media for exchange, or simply from a lack of "liquidity" or readily obtainable credit. Nowhere is much said in the way of bankers or lenders in Middle-Earth.

But just as clearly much commerce could be done, as it was for centuries even in the "dark ages", provided one could inspect the coinage carefully, and certainly Gondor, Rohan, Dale and possibly the Beornings had the economic stability to legally sanction certain forms of money, which can be important even for denominations directly based on precious metals. Hence, the Italians did so well for centuries because they would maintain and protect monetary standards that were then respected and used throughout much of the Western World.

Finally, on the question that Tolkien's reference to rather latter-day goods and inventions is a result of translation and approximation, I think that that is fair. He may have wanted to make references simply so that we could understand. But it does sort of wrap one up in ball, whereas it is just as reasonable to assume that he wrote what he felt conveyed his immediate purpose, and that Hobbits running around with coffee, tabacco and matches was just fine, even in the context of world that in other ways was barely out of the Iron Age.

Remember the Elves, Dwarves and Numenoreans were operating in many ways with an entirely different cultural technological paradigm that could not be readily transferred.

[bombur]

About preference in coffee, it was said: ”I like my coffee like my Nazguls: strong and black.”

How about this ME version of Finnish saying: Coffee shoul be enjoyed as black as is Sauron (satan), as hot as is mount doom (hell), as pure as is Luthien (angel) and as sweet as is love. smilies/biggrin.gif

I just have to add about the monetary system of ME... Minted money has value in addition to its gold content. To my understanding even in the post middle age Europe every local baron was minting his own coin. As far as the face / emblem stamped on it was recognised, the coin was worth more then gold. Farther it was worth exactly what the gold in it was. So basically in the 15th century or so, currencies of Milan, Venice and Genova etc. were worth more then gold all around Europe because everyone at least was trading with someone who was trading with someone who knew that he can trade the coin for more value with the renaiccance Italian traders. That is why every ancient trasurehoard in Europe contains golden dublon - coin. Finnish graves excavated from the pre swedish (tribal lands with no centralised authority) period contain Byzantium coin from some 2000km away from here. It would have been worth more then the golden armband chipped by weight used internally by many viking nations and Finnish tribes as well (though lot of trade here in north was barter). Why did it have value? Because the same east sailing vikings who traded pattern welded swords for pelts in finnish coasts also sailed along russian rivers to Byzantium to trade pelts for silk and they knew that Bysantite traders give more silk for their own coin then for goldchip. Value of currency is largely a social agreenment. Currency is like a transportable and intercahangable notebook... ”Yes, we could just trade product for product, but give me two for one now and I give you this yellow circle and anyone in this city will give you two for one for it tomorrow.”

If the trade in middle earth is by land and in small steps, then currency system is very different. Coin stays in relatively small area if there is no shortcuts along the sea (In Europe you can never be more then 500 km or so from nearest coast and likely never more then few dozen km from closest sailable river.... not so in ME... ok... not so in China either but China is always different. They had unified imperial currency at 4th century or so... BC). Everyone uses the coin to buy from those who give best price. This means that in Bree, shirecoin recieved as payment for coffee ( smilies/smile.gif ) buys from shire and not the soutern traders. Tharbad coin recieved as payment for hobbit nettletextile, pipeweed and herbal teas buys coffee from the southerners. Trader gets his profits in Breecoin by selling portion of the textile, tea, weed and coffee to Breemen. Thus the exeptional far traveling hobbit will note a strange inflation... farther one gets from home the more expensive everything is and by Esgaroth the barman will look at his coin funny and take scales from under counter. The coin is good everywhere since it is of precious metal, but it buys most close to home where the stamp has some value. I think coin of Gondor bearing the face of Elendil still would most likely be the only one in the ME to be worth more then it’s weight everwhere as everyone knows that if they pass it down along the Anduin or the great southern road, it will EVENTUALLY reach a place of importance where it is worth more then its weight. To give more then the weight value for coin a trader needs to know for himself that it has more value somewhere and at least the general direction of that somewhere. In such situation coinery remains very unified and local, only carried by the pockets of stray far-travelling hobbit and trader returning the coin to the direction of greater value. Gondor coin will tend to drift back to Gondor and every other coin accepted at the weight value will tend to eng up to a local goldsmith or mint as a raw materiale. Another type of omnipresent coin might be dwarwen coin. As dwarves travel along the east-west road and propably everyone knows that they give better value in goods or work to the coin stamped with the beard of Durin in iron mountais.

What comes to the ”idle class gentlemen,” like the Bagginses, moneylending and land leasing takes a amount of work as well. Ask any medieval jew or baron.

Of this I have no EXACT FACTUAL knowledge... some reference and conjecture only. It would seem to me that at some point of history between the Hansa trading houses and the London stockmarket a consept if interrest and investment fund arose as a type of contract. Maybe the 16th century, 17th century, maybe the 18th, however at some point this system developed. And I might emphasise that it arose in the upper middle class or lower upperclass. Basically it was a pension system. With something like 25 units of money you could buy a contract for 1 unit a year thereafter. Such contract would be bought from established businesman or even kings state funds (maybe even Lotho made such contracts) whom you trust not to be bankrupted. This maybe was a step between the modern banker and medieval moneylender. Such contract did not have expiration date, such money could not be withdrawn as it can be from modern bank, the contract and the income could be transferred as heritage.

Though I am far to the political left, I’d have to say that thing like this is to a degree a beneficial historical devlopment. Many a artist, author or philosopher was a son of average wealth bourgoise family, that had passed him some small income by such contract for a ”living interrest”. Van Gogh sold I think one single painting for money while living. Had there not existed such form of social contract, there would not have been a poor painter meagerly getting by, but a coalminer eating his hard earned bread and mutterintg that he just knows he could have been something.


Janne Harju


Ps. spices... you would not believe the amount of plants usable as spice grow natural in temperate zone. Cellery, chives parsley, hop, mustardseed, mint, garlic, onion, tansy, mugvort, basil, sorrle, wildmint, gale, caraway, meadowsweet, juniper, rowan, nettle and henbane all have uses as spice and are only the ones I KNOW to be universal in european continent, the ones the name of which I know in english. If the hobbit kitchen is at all related to english, they do not need imported spices. I rather can see them having small herb gardens everyone.

[maikafanawen]

Did they drink milk as a beverage and not just like a creamer or an extra ingrediant?

And does anyone know where online I could find some hobbit recipes like cakes or something?

[Tar-Palantir]

recipe link (http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Recipes&file=index)

[ January 18, 2003: Message edited by: Tar-Palantir ]

[Balin999]

Hm, let's see.
Dwarves moving to the Ered Luin came through the Shire. Maybe that's were Bilbo got the coffee from. But where did the Dwarves get their coffee from?
I think we shouldn't forget that "The Hobbit" was written for Tolkien's kids, who were not supposed to ask such questions as we do here.

[doug*platypus]

Yes, but it was written by JRR Tolkien, one of the most notorious literary perfectionists ever to take up a pen.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to be speculating on The Origins of Bilbo's Coffee. Besides, it gives some of these more elderly posters a place to gambol about, without the shame of being seen in the Middle-Earth Mayhem forum.

[Tirinor]

Coffee beans to the Shire? Same as coconuts to England - African swallows.

Sometimes the obvious escapes you.

[bombur]

Its not a question whether the swallow could grip it. It is simple question of weight ratios. A 5 oz bird could not carry a one pound coconut.

Listen, in order to maintain air speed velocity a swallow needs to beat its wings 43 times every second, right?

Am I right?

Oh yea, African swallow maybe could, but not European swallow. But then again the African swallow is a non-migratory.

[tangerine]

Monty Python, LOL. I don't have Holy Grail memorized, so I'm afraid I cannot add to that.
Ever wonder why Bilbo's mother is named after a powerful sedative? Make you wonder what those Tooks are really doing on their little 'adventures'...

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

The whole swallow angle's spurious anyway. Coffee beans are carried into the North and West of Middle-earth in huge sacks by migrating Balrogs. Nobody knows why.

The beans are roasted in transit and fall in the creature's wake as the sack burns away. For many years Special squads of coffee-pickers have followed any migratory-looking Balrogs with dustpans and brushes, selling the regathered beans in the markets of Gondor, Arnor and Rohan for a tidy profit.

[Birdland]

And don't forget M-E's version of Kopi Luak, which also falls from the Balrog...but not from his sack. smilies/smile.gif

[lindil]

The Dwarf-trading theory has more going for it than the Gondor one.

There was no trade between Gondor and Eriador at the time of the Hobbit.

Barely any trade within Eriador and anywhere, only the Dwarves of the Blue Mntns and the varied inhabitants of Rivendell had regular interaction outside of their immediate regions any longer [ I think some details are forht comeing in UT or HoME12] anyway, in 'Of Dwarves and Men' we read about the majority of the Dwarves anscestral mansions being much farther away East, essentially off of the map.

So they I think would have been in the best position to trade something like coffee mansion to mansion and have it thus make it's way to to the wealthy Baggins.

[Eruantalon]

No offence to anyone but I think your missing the point here.


The hobbit was supposed to be the only work in middel earth when it was realsed.If I am not wrong.But after it popularity the book publisher wanted more from him.


So what I think is that he was just making somthing that had some famliar things in it.He was trying to take you from a transition from one world that we live in to a vary far one.Hence the party.Notice the narritve aspect in the book that wasn't found in any of The Lord of the Rings saga.

It was one of the many things he was trying to do to slowly bring the reader into this world he created.How do you explain a world no one has ever seen.How do you bring people there.He did this vary well,don't you think?

Well just look at the entire book.Its almost like a diffent mind set than the LotR.There is the seeds of ancient things.The fading shadows of them too.But still there not at all the same book.


He was trying to creat some thing for childre.The coffee is unimportent or where it came from.


Where did they get Tobbaco?

Where did they get coffee?

How was it that the shire didn't have winter even though they where so far north?

Why didn't Frodo or Bilbo ever get married,they where old enogh wheren't they.?

If Hobbits eat so much and where so portly why wheren't there ever any hart attacts there?

These are all forms of reality questioning the story.So they don't have anything to do with it.Since its not there place.

But in the 30s or 40s Egyptolagist found traces of cocain in some mummys.Could Tolkien have know about this.Maybe he thought that is wasn't too ridiculs to have Bilbo give his guest coffee.

Maybe what we think of as coffee today was not the coffee that the Dwarfs where talking about?

Maybe its a small detial Tolkien forgot to explain or explained it and we never found out about it.

There are tons of notes and written things no one has ever seen that he has written.It could go on and on like this.

[bombur]

”Where did they get Tobbaco?”
You are kidding I hope? I really suggest you read the books.

”Where did they get coffee?”
As we were discussing...

”How was it that the shire didn't have winter even though they where so far north?”
It had several... Just like every other place in ME (there are too many references to count or quote) but not during the summers...

”Why didn't Frodo or Bilbo ever get married,they where old enogh wheren't they.?”
Because not everyone does. And especially back in the times of old, some people chose a lifestyle that was considered impossible to combine with marrying and rising a family. Theese folks include most of our worlds famous explorers (like Magalhaes, Pizarro, Cortez etc) and knights errant (Like Lancelot) for example. Today marriage is considered to be a form of entertainment in most of the world and one may make such question as you did. As late as in the 1600-1700 the anwser to your query would have been baffeled stare. People who went missing for years to travel, who obsessed over poems and became social freaks simply DID NOT MARRY. Many academics did not marry. Hence the degree "Bachelor".

”If Hobbits eat so much and where so portly why wheren't there ever any hart attacts there?”

In LOTR, silmarillion and hobbit we are told the manner of death of exactly two hobbits (excluding the conflict of the cleansing of shire.) The manner of the death of theese two is told because they were Frodos mom and dad and their deaths led to Frodo being adopted by Bilbo. They did not have heart attacks because they had a boating accident first. They may have had indigestion though.

”But in the 30s or 40s Egyptolagist found traces of cocain in some mummys.”

Doubtful. Koka- plant does not grow on the old continent.

[Eruantalon]

Wait a minute? Why are you answering the questions. There supposed to be silly things that have nothing to do with books. Did you read what I had to say.

I wasn't posing a question. I was making a statment. Oh well if you don't get it I am not explaining.

[doug*platypus]

Ah, there's the rub. Eruantalon, you are slowly learning that there is no such thing as a rhetorical question in the Barrow-Downs forum. And fair enough, too.

The Lord of the Rings, and also post-publication alterations to The Hobbit, served to tie The Hobbit (which I only grudgingly refer to as a 'children's book') in with The Silmarillion, and at the same time providing the Hobbit sequel that the public (at large, not just kids) was clamouring for. If Tolkien had desired to remove coffee and make the story more realistic, he could have easily done so. He changed an entire chapter ("Riddles in the Dark", see Letters of Tolkien) after all, and a single word would hardly have been of consequence.

I can only surmise that coffee was intended to be left as it was. And that therefore, since JRRT was such an immaculate perfectionist, there is a plausible explanation out there somewhere for how hobbits (or at least the well-off Bilbo) came by coffee.

[doug*platypus]

The following was boldly swiped from another site during a dawn raid. Many bothans died to get you this information.

Q: Suilad, you guys are doing a great job! In LOTR I hear a mention of tea and I think sugar. Well I know that tea requires warm climates; for I belong to the Indian subcontinent. The realms of Middle-earth were based on the temperatures that prevailed in Europe – or England to be more precise (as Tolkien had planned). So where would our dear hobbits get their tea from? Did they trade with the south (it is mentioned that it is hot there) or were there other means by which they procured tea?

–Beleg Cuthlaion from Pakistan

A: Well, I don’t think this question stops with just tea. Tolkien wrote of some plants and foods that were meant to be distinctly English, giving Middle-earth the impression of "the familiar world" while we find other produce that was incongruous with this same world. What about corn, apples, and tobacco? The issue of agriculture in Middle-earth gets a bit tangled, I’m afraid. The matter is further confused by the FOTR film where we see Pippin and Merry cooking tomatoes up on Weathertop ("That’s nice! Ash in my tomatoes!") – when Tolkien himself never once mentioned tomatoes in the story. So did they exist in Middle-earth? Did regular tea and tobacco, even, exist in this Northern European-based fictional world or did the author just stick them in there? There is a discussion of "cold chicken and pickles" in The Annotated Hobbit where Douglas Anderson talks about Gandalf’s request. The wizard originally asked for tomatoes but Tolkien later changed it to pickles:

This revision brings up the question as to why it should matter whether Bilbo’s larder was stocked with tomatoes or pickles. Tom Shippey, in The Road to Middle-earth, suggests that as Tolkien wrote the sequel to The Hobbit, and as he came to perceive the hobbits and their land as characteristically English in nature, he recognized tomatoes as foreign in origin and in name. They were imports from America, like potatoes and tobacco, which were quickly adopted in England. Though Tolkien does use the word tobacco in The Hobbit a handful of times, it is strictly avoided in The Lord of the Rings, where pipeweed is used. There, as well, potatoes are given the more rustic name taters. Tomatoes were thus out of place in the Shire as Tolkien came to perceive it.
That settles that. No tomatoes. Now what about tea? I think the answer lies in Tolkien’s fictionalization of tobacco, where the author created a proxy for the plant. It seems there was no actual tobacco per se, just his Middle-earth version of tobacco. The plant that came from Númenor was galenas; as Tolkien decided it should be "imported" to Middle-earth and grown in Gondor. It grew in the south of Gondor easily enough but up in the Shire it was carefully handled to survive the climate. Though I have no mind for farming, I would venture a guess that tea had a similar back-history. It probably originated elsewhere (maybe Gondor or further beyond) and was brought up the Greenway. If the clever hobbit farmers of the Shire grew any tea plants similar to the tea of our modern world, lucky them. It seems a rather tricky thing for Tolkien to balance: keeping familiar, English elements associated the hobbits and having to explain at great length (in the case of pipeweed) how these items came to be in the fictional world of Middle-earth.

–Quickbeam



From Green Books, the One Ring (http://greenbooks.theonering.net/questions/files/110102.html).

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

This was one of the first threads I ever lurked on....perhaps the very first. It was waaaaay back in the day when I had a different screenname even! Reading through and posting on Kuru's interesting thread on possible trade between Dwarves and Elves in the First Age reminded me of it.

I love coffee, and I love Tolkien-related conundrums so it seemed time to resurrect this thread and to pose the question anew to a fresh generation of Downers:

1) Did the hobbits really have coffee, as we understand it (as opposed to some other form of drink which the narrator has simply called "coffee"), and if so

2) Where the heck did they get it?

For me, it makes most sense that they would have traded with the Dwarves for it, and that the Dwarves obtained it in trade with Men from the south...but this is where it gets tricky: Gondor was not southerly enough to grow coffee, so either the men of Gondor were trading with the Southrons in some way, or the Dwarves were trading with the Southrons....

And while we're at it: what about tea and sugar? Also crops that only grow in the tropics, so where the heck did that come from?

[Lalwendë]

There's not that much mystery to it really. Coffee doesn't have to be made from arabica, it can be made from all kinds of stuff, including chicory, which would in fact have been extremely common in Tolkien's day - its only lately with fancy city types wanting fresh-ground-hand-made £200 a cup coffee that us Brits have got all 'sophisticated' about the brown stuff. Maybe Tolkien would even have Camp Coffee (we all remember that stuff is we're over a certain age). If it wasn't made with chicory it could be brewed with acrons and other nuts.

Sugar? Sugar beet. Grows everywhere.

Tea? Dunno about that growing in different climes. But again tea does not have to be made from the usual leaf. However here, I think Tolkien as a Brit would have sniffed at the very thought of namby-pamby 'herbal teas'.

And the tobacco thing was cleared up because the plant even grows in the arctic and you can easily grow your own (and legally too) in an English garden. :smokin:

[Bêthberry]

You know, I tried to find this thread just the other day, but for some reason I kept thinking it was started by Maril rather than BW and forgot the name. Great thread!

Fordim, I've always felt the Grey Havens was under represented in the LotR story. I mean, why maintain an important sailing harbour, manned by one of the oldest and wisest of elves, if it is going to be used only for one-way, one-time only, excursion trips to the West?

My bet would be that there was substantial trading going on via the Grey Havens, accessible to dwarves from the Blue Mountains and Hobbits and run by elves. The Bay of Belfalas offers several ports which fed into Gondor. I bet we could even imagine some kind of pirate RPG game out of this.

Pirates of the Haradrium. ;)

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Lal m'dear,

There's not that much mystery to it really. Coffee doesn't have to be made from arabica, it can be made from all kinds of stuff, including chicory, which would in fact have been extremely common in Tolkien's day

So called replacement "coffees" were only invented in WWII when the real thing became scarce -- so when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in the 30s, coffee meant, well, coffee.

Sugar? Sugar beet. Grows everywhere.

Sorry again luv, but sugar beets weren't actually used for sugar until 1838 when the first commercial sugar beet mill was opened in the US. Sugar from beets wasn't even imported to the UK until much later. This means that the hobbits either had technology well beyond everyone else in Middle-Earth (including the steam engine, compressors capable of creating a vacuum, and boilers) or they were using sugar from a sugar cane, which is tropical. (What's more, sugar beets were a better source of sugar than other root veggies, but not hugely so -- they were hybridized and cultivated in later 18th Century to gain a higher sucrose level...got to love Wikipedia).

Tea? Dunno about that growing in different climes. But again tea does not have to be made from the usual leaf. However here, I think Tolkien as a Brit would have sniffed at the very thought of namby-pamby 'herbal teas'.

I think for Tolkien and hobbits alike, "herbal tea" is an oxymoron. So is anyone who drinks it.

And the tobacco thing was cleared up because the plant even grows in the arctic and you can easily grow your own (and legally too) in an English garden.

And who said anything about tobacco? My theory is that this is what the hobbits traded in return for coffee, tea and sugar.

Beebs: you're on!

[Folwren]

I have no comments, just wanted to pop in and say how relieved I am to see this thread. I didn't know if coffee was actually in M-E and without thinking about it, I stuck it into the Golden Perch thread. Only after I had placed the post did I wonder, "Wait a moment...was there even coffee there? And would the Hobbits have had it?"

At least I know now that there was coffee in ME...at least, from the little I've read on this thread, some people think here is...but I'm still not possitive about the hobbit question.

-- Folwren

[Lalwendë]

Ah, but Fordim, there's no time frame to consider in relation to the Real World. If there is, then which one are we going to go for? Medieval? Dark Ages? Tudor? Tolkien jumbles up elements from all periods of history (even post-industrial) to create Middle-earth, so there need be no restrictions on whether certain produce had been 'discovered' or 'developed'. They also had umbrellas, waistcoats and pipes, none of which were around before at least the Tudor period.

The only consideration regarding foodstuffs is whether certain crops would grow in certain climes.

I mean, they also have potatoes and tomatoes in Middle-earth but there's certainly no America in Tolkien's creation. Now if there were levitating potatoes or maybe dancing coffee beans this would be a problem, but the time-frame of 'discoveries' in our world aren't that important, especially when discussing Hobbits and The Shire.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Indeed so. It seems to me that this is what Tolkien meant when he said that Middle-earth is our world at "...at a different stage of imagination", rather than an earlier stage in its history. In an historical novel coffee would be a ridiculous and unforgivable anachronism, and one which Tolkien could have avoided easily. As it is, it exists in a deliberately anomalous society, which owes most of its more anachronistic features to the device used in The Hobbit of pitting an Edwardian country gentleman against figures of legend. I think that's one of the most overlooked themes in Tolkien: that in his first novel, modern values and approaches save situations that would become disasters if left to the mythic heroic code of conduct. This approach only works because the Shire is a place in which coffee, tomatoes and potatoes, not to mention mechanical clocks and pipe-smoking, can exist.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

True.

But with the advent of LotR and its much more consciously historically 'realistic' approach to events (that is, it is supposed to 'seem' real and reasonable at every turn) isn't that stance more difficult to maintain? The meticulous attention to detail in the creation (subcreation) of this secondary world means that it all MUST make sense (to Tolkien's way of thinking).

So the Barrow Wight's excellent question still stands: where did the coffee come from? Because even though there is no mention of coffee in LotR, the Shire still exists unchanged from The Hobbit with all of its clocks and umbrellas. Those sorts of manufactured goods are relatively easy to work out -- hobbits and Dwarves are clever and able to make these things. But coffee, sugar and tea can only be made from crops not found in the climate Tolkien describes for the Shire.

Given the assumption left us by the work itself -- that it is internally realistic, logical and subject to the same physical laws as we find in our own world -- and in the absence of any explanation by the author/narrator, what theories can we come up with for the source of these exotic goods.

Saying simply "that's the way he wrote it" is such a cop out. I certainly wouldn't accept that answer to a question like, say, "Why did Gollum fall into the Crack of Doom?" or "Why wasn't Boromir able to resist the Ring?" Why would the very fabric of M-E's physical reality be any less worthy of investigation than the moral questions?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Well, I could be flippant and say that Hobbits of the Shire probably bought their coffee in a shop like any normal person, but that wouldn't address the question of how it got there. In the absence of any information about that, other than that coffee could be bought in the Shire, I'd guess that it was grown somewhere with a climate similar to that of the modern-day coffee-producing countries. Since coffee is grown in Kenya and other African countries, and since Harad is the furthest country to the south that appears on maps of Middle-earth, I'd nominate somewhere in unmapped Far Harad as a point of origin for Shire coffee.

Unfortunately that falls down when we consider trade routes. We need one that allows the coffee to get to the Shire, but avoids those places where they don't appear to have discovered it. By sea to Mithlond does that, but it seems a fairly unlikely trading port. The likely route to somewhere like Pelargir requires some neutral party not mentioned in the books who could act as carrier, and also requires the presence of reasonably serviceable roads into Eriador that Tolkien also neglects to mention. Once the coffee has found its way into the western lands it's easier to imagine it being passed from hand to hand until it reached the Shire, as goods often were in pre-industrial times, but that doesn't work because the Hobbits seem so insular and merchants seem a rare sight in their country.

Since getting hold of coffee by trade seems problematic, and since the hobbits seem somehow to have developed a late-Victorian or Edwardian society, perhaps they grew it in hothouses. That would only require that they somehow discovered the bean and laid their hands on its seeds, which requires only very sporadic and unpredictable contact with far-away and relatively hostile peoples. Some Hobbits were in the habit of disappearing into the blue, so maybe one of those travellers began to cultivate coffee beans, but that is to build tenuous speculation on tenuous speculation founded on more tenuous speculation, and argument cannot live by logic alone. I suppose at least I've offered a possibility.

[Lalwendë]

Hothouses? Could work.

Well Hobbits must have a certain knack with growing things and discovering innovative uses for plants, or they would not have come up with the ingenious idea of drying and curing tobacco and smoking it. There are no Native Americans to demonstrate the arts of smoking, so a Hobbit must have discovered it in some strange and peculiar way. If they have such greenfingers and ingenious minds it s no big leap of the imagination for them to grow coffee in hothouses - note they also had tomatoes which do not do very well out of doors in the English climate (assuming The Shire is anything like the English climate which it seems we are doing). Likewise such people could easily have come up with other plants to produce 'coffee' and could easily have discovered how to make sugar from non-cane sources.

[MatthewM]

COFFEE?! Mmmmmm. :)

[JennyHallu]

So called replacement "coffees" were only invented in WWII when the real thing became scarce -- so when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in the 30s, coffee meant, well, coffee.
I'm sorry dear, but I'm afraid that isn't true. Chicory has been used as a replacement for coffee since the Middle Ages (see quote below). It was commonly used on the American prairie, and my great-grandparents drank it during the depression.

Root chicory (Chicorium intybus var. sativum) has been grown since the Middle Ages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages) as a coffee substitute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_substitute). Around 1970 it was found that the root contains up to 20% inulin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inulin). Since then, new strains have been created, giving root chicory an inulin content comparable to that of sugar beet (around 600 dt/ha). Inulin is mainly present in the plant family Asteraceae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteraceae) as a storage carbohydrate (for example Jerusalem artichoke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke), dahlia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlia), etc.). It is used as a sweetener in the food industry (with a sweetening power 30% higher than that of sucrose). Inulin can be converted to fructose and glucose through hydrolysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrolysis).
As for tea, I do not understand the general disdain for alternative teas. Chamomile, Sassafras, any of a million plants produce delightful teas, and I don't see that hobbits would be so far above availing themselves of them.

And lastly, to sugar. I agree that cane sugar would be an extremely difficult thing for hobbits to procure, short of Bethberry's trade scenario. But Tolkien was a philologist, not a horticulturalist. Sugar beets had been developed in Europe a hundred years and more before our hero's birth: they would have been a source of sugar Tolkien would have been familiar and comfortable with. I don't think its reasonable to assume that hobbits could not have grown them.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Chickory cofee, sassafras tea, and beet-sugar??

No wonder Bilbo took off with the Dwarves!

[JennyHallu]

My apologies once again, Fordim, but sarsparilla (that heavenly plant) is not used to make tea. It's used to make root beer.

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Jumping in feet first here, I apologize.

Some how I can't see the insular hobbits finding out about foreign coffee. But I did a bit of Googling and found that New South Wales, Australia is a coffee growing area. Now New South Wales has a highest maximum temperature of 50.0C (122.0F), Wilcannia, 11 January 1939 and lowest minimum temperature of -23.0C (-9.4F), Charlotte Pass, 29 June 1994. It would seem that if they could grow the stuff there, the Shire might also have a bit of it as well, perhaps as delicacy growing in a sheltered spot and defended against frost and snow with fire pots and tarps. In anycase, I imagine that it would have to be replanted frequently.

Roasting the stuff would not be an amazing discovery, as many spices are roasted to facilitate grinding them. And then again, did Tolkien actually mention that the concoction produced was as good as the stuff we have from now warmer climes? It might have and entirely different character. Or different base. Besides chicory, toasted beets, acorns, rye, field peas and okra seed have all been used as coffee substitutes.

[JennyHallu]

Climate is as much a matter of humidity and precipitation as it is temperature, Hilde, and the fact remains that the Shire is fairly clearly painted as a temperate zone. While a greenhouse would be adequate, I simply do not see any way for coffee to be grown out of doors.

[Bêthberry]

I think a question we all need to consider at this point is what need would the Hobbits have for coffee? I mean, if The Shire is an idyllic community, if things are peaceable, if everyone is happy with his place and all's right with the world, why would they need a caffeine jolt?

Was Tolkien suggesting something to us about this idyllic community?

[Aiwendil]

If I'm not very much mistaken, both sassafrass and sarsaparilla are used in root beer. Now if only the Hobbits had discovered that, the Shire might be the perfect place to live.

Regarding the New World anachronisms found in the Shire: while these anachronisms undeniably still exist in LotR and the third edition of The Hobbit, there is some evidence that Tolkien was troubled by them. There has been much talk of tomatoes on this thread, but if I'm not mistaken, the only instance of the word in either work is from the first edition of The Hobbit:

And just bring out the cold chicken and tomatoes.

But in the revision Tolkien changed this to:

And just bring out the cold chicken and pickles.

It seems quite probable that his reason for making the change was that tomatoes would indeed be an anachronism in ancient Europe. At any rate, I can't think of much other reason to change tomatoes to pickles, unless his ideas about Gandalf's appetite had changed.

It's also worth noting that, whereas he uses the word "tobacco" throughout the Hobbit, he uses the term "pipe-weed" almost exclusively in LotR. "Tobacco" is only used once in that work, and it is used by the narrator, not by any of the characters. "Potato" is also rarely used in LotR, "tater" being the preferred term. So it certainly seems to me that as the world of The Hobbit was drawn into the larger Legendarium, Tolkien made an effort to reduce the instances and obtrusiveness of the Shire's anachronisms. The terms "pipe-weed" and "taters" are at least good English words, unlike the obviously Native American-derived "potato" and "tobacco".

The later terms also allow a little bit of room for the speculation that the articles found in LotR are not actually to be equated with the tobacco and potatoes of the New World. As others have suggested, the Hobbits' pipe-weed need not have been of the Nicotiana genus from which modern tobacco is derived. "Taters", we may suppose, could have been some variety of tuberous root native to ancient Europe - and perhaps now extinct. The Hobbits' coffee may also have been a different kind of seed from that which is called coffee today. We might also suppose that the use of the words "coffee", "potato", and "tobacco" simply represent the modern translator's attempt to render the names of unfamiliar plants from the original Westron, the translations being based on their apparent function.

If, contrary to the above, we are to suppose that the Hobbits' coffee was indeed something very much like our own and that it derived from somewhere in Far Harad, we might explain its presence in the Shire by supposing that only Hobbits had at that time developed a taste for it. It's conceivable that it was traded through Gondor, but that it was in low demand there, and was thus obtained only as a commodity to be exchanged in the north. I admit that this seems unlikely. Another possibility is that coffee was in fact used in Gondor - we have no explicit evidence against this. Perhaps it was used but not as a drink - it might have been used as a spice in food, for instance. A third possibility is that which has already been mentioned - that it did in fact originate far away, but that once discovered by the Hobbits it was grown locally.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I think a question we all need to consider at this point is what need would the Hobbits have for coffee? I mean, if The Shire is an idyllic community, if things are peaceable, if everyone is happy with his place and all's right with the world, why would they need a caffeine jolt?

Because they had mornings.

Thanks Aiwendil for the intelligent summation of the problem and three possible solutions. What I find interesting about this debate is that a reader's response to which of your three scenarios seems to depend more on their sense of what the Shire is like -- or how they want it to be -- than anything in the text.

I, for example, see the Shire as a little pocket of the 'real' world smack in the centre of Middle-Earth: so for me, coffee, tea and sugar are the same there as here. When Bilbo consumes any of these products he is doing so just as I would, bringing us into close, almost visceral contact.

Jenny, on the other hand, you seem to see the Shire as a bit more removed from our world than do I. That is, when Bilbo or the other hobbits go about their daily lives in the Shire it doesn't seem to break the enchantment for you if you have to perform a bit of imaginative sleight of hand, quickly and silently substituting something like SASSAFRAS tea for 'real' tea when you read it.

Squatter and Hilde, you both offer yet another interesting variation of readers' response in that you would appear to want, like me, to close the gap between the Shire and the 'real' world -- when Bilbo drinks coffee, he drinks coffee -- but you are a bit more willing, like Jenny, to contemplate a Shire that is not exactly like our world (I don't care how good the hothouse or how dedicated the gardener, you ain't gonna get real coffee to grow in the Shire!). Wheras Jenny performs sleight of hand, you both seem to prefer elegant gymnastics.

I'm not suggesting that any one approach is right or better than the others -- only observing that as is so often the case, when we try to figure out this story we end up revealing a lot more about ourselves!

[JennyHallu]

Jenny, on the other hand, you seem to see the Shire as a bit more removed from our world than do I. That is, when Bilbo or the other hobbits go about their daily lives in the Shire it doesn't seem to break the enchantment for you if you have to perform a bit of imaginative sleight of hand, quickly and silently substituting something like SASSAFRAS tea for 'real' tea when you read it.

Ah, Fordim, I find your elegant summation of my stance delightful, and yet I would like to take a moment to elaborate.

To me, when Tolkien described hobbits as essentially English, that means that an Englishman, one of Tolkien's fellows, could walk into Hobbiton and feel a sense of homieness, of comfort and recognition. Little people, with little goals and near horizons, who live a life essentially alike to that of every man, worried about his own family and lands, with little regard to the larger things that happen around him as long as his comfort is secure.

Therefore, the little everyday habits which mark the life of our traveler have their mirrored correlaries in the lives of the hobbits. He smokes a pipe; so do they. The esoteric question of whether his tobacco and theirs are quite identical genetically is mostly moot: that isn't the point. The point is that our traveler, seeing Bilbo contentedly smoking outside his door, can immediately sense and understand the thoughts, emotions, lifestyle, economic state...everything worth knowing about Bilbo can be observed or inferred from his attitude outside his door, idle on a sunny morning, blowing smoke-rings. And the only reason our traveler understands this is because he has the same habit.

That said:

I am the sort of person who never finishes a story. In fact, rarely do I even get to the all-important step of beginning the actual narrative. Those who play in RPs with me (especially if you've completed a joint post with me) know that I have an annoying habit of writing long narrative posts, beginning to end, in a few minutes, so the ability to write in narrative isn't the problem. When the story is my own entirely, I get so bogged down in details that I can never get around to starting the story. I am fascinated by the how of the worlds I create. I care less about what happens to my characters than how their peers make their living, what rituals and holidays inspire and motivate them, when they celebrate and why...

I once derailed a science fiction story with an elaborate plot because my calculus wasn't up to the task of defining the orbit of the planet the tale was to be set on. Why was this so terribly important? Because without that I couldn't understand the turn of seasons, and without that the cycle of agriculture, and in the end the entire economic system of this planet rested on one fact I didn't have the knowledge to create.

By this long tangent I mean to say only that I am obsessed with details. It's fine with me if sugar doesn't mean sugar as I know it, or if pipe-weed or tea aren't the same plants as I'm familiar with, but I have a pathological need to know what they are...

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

It's fine with me if sugar doesn't mean sugar as I know it, or if pipe-weed or tea aren't the same plants as I'm familiar with

Well that's all I'm saying -- you're a "close enough" kind of reader for the Shire. Me, close only counts in horse shoes and hand-grenades. If I read the Bilbo is have a smoke and drinking a coffee, by gar that's what he's doing!

[Lalwendë]

"Arrrwwwrrraaaaughhhhhhhh!"

That's the sound of a torturous explanation. Or possibly Bilbo as he spits out a mouthful of foul acorn coffee outside the new Hobbiton branch of Starbucks and vows never to go there again (good taste...). ;)

Seriously, surely the only consideration is whether something could conceivably be grown in The Shire, considering its latitude and climate. Comparing time frames to our own world doesn't really work, as LotR isn't set in a time we could possibly compare to anyway. If it was set in Medieval times then the Fourth to Sixth ages must have been ruddy short. And anyway, doesn't Tolkien say they could all be measured in thousands of years? So, LotR is set when? Some six thousand years ago minimum? Well if it is then just about everything (steel swords, armour, horsemanship, etc) would be an anachronism, surely?

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

A few more thoughts.

Coffee could conceivably been brought up to Bree, the Shire hobbits obtaining it through that market.

Or a traveler, addicted to coffee, could have visited north and made his/her own substitution for the drink, dubbing that ‘coffee’. Neither readers, narrators nor hobbits would be the wiser. :)

[JennyHallu]

*quietly climbs off soapbox* Sorry.


I do disagree with Lal though...I think there are other considerations here than she's looking at.

[Thinlómien]

What if it is this simple: in Tolkien's Middle-Earth coffee grew in colder climate than in our world? Wouldn't be the only difference between the two worlds.

I mean, if a book has elves, hobbits, dwarves and orcs etc prancing around (not to mention balrogs and such) is it really any wonder that in such a world coffee may grow in a different climate than in our world?

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Yes, perhaps a strain of coffee plant that has since died out. A precurser of Coffea robusta that went the way of Australopithecus robustus.

[Lalwendë]

Well yes! It is after all fantasy, and it does have many odder things than coffee that grows in strange climates. ;)

The Shire could indeed (going right back to the need for scientific explanation of course) have micro-climates. Would anyone here believe that palm trees not only grow but bear fruit on Scotland's west coast? Well that's due to the gulf stream. Even odder, I live at high altitude in a city that's already at high altitude, on the lee of the Pennines in Northern England and I can grow tropical plants in my garden.

There is also the possibility of a changed climate. Did Mount Doom and Sauron's industry contribute to global warming? It would certainly explain the extreme weather Middle-earth could get, the harsh winters they'd had (which brought down Wolves from the North), and maybe uncommonly hot summers, seasonal shifts which might vary wildly from region to region.