Coffee!

[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]

Originally Posted by Fordim

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 [color=#0000ff]Middle Ages[/color] as a [color=#0000ff]coffee substitute[/color]. Around 1970 it was found that the root contains up to 20% [color=#0000ff]inulin[/color]. 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 [color=#0000ff]Asteraceae[/color] as a storage carbohydrate (for example [color=#0000ff]Jerusalem artichoke[/color], [color=#0000ff]dahlia[/color], 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 [color=#0000ff]hydrolysis[/color].

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!

[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.