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Coffee and the law

By Jim Chen at al.

Our friends at Red Lion Reports have brewed a pair of powerful posts on the connection between coffee and the law. First, Kelly Bozanic revels in caffeine (in the form of coffee and espresso drinks) as her drug of choice. And then Marie Reilly delivers this tour-de-force on the social history of coffee:

Coffee has a surprising and so far unexplored social history. About one thousand years ago, coffee from Africa crossed the Red Sea into Arabia where Muslim monks brewed it into a kind of wine used for spiritual rituals. During the 16th century, Muslim religious leaders prohibited coffee drinking as forbidden by God. But, coffee caught on and became so popular and so troubling to Muslim religious and political leaders that in the 17th century, a Turkish sultan prohibited it again for the Ottoman Empire. In 18th century Germany, the government took up regulation of the demon drink and proposed prohibition, but only for women. J.S. Bach, a noted coffee house hound, was so outraged (too much coffee?) that in 1732 he composed an operatic political screed[,] The Coffee Cantata.

To all of which, Marie concludes: "I'm thinking that we lawyers need to scrutinize the history of regulation of coffee and its implications for religious liberty and sexual equality. Seminar anyone?"

To all these questions, except perhaps Kelly Bozanic's quest for the ideal cup of coffee in State College, Pennsylvania, Agricultural Law has the answer. Some time ago, this forum proposed the very seminar that Marie recommends, based on Jim Chen, The Potable Constitution, 15 Const. Comment. 1 (1998).

I also have a suggestion regarding the social and cultural history of coffee. As Food Law Prof Blog has kindly noticed, I discussed this very issue in Around the World in Eighty Centiliters, 15 Minn. J. Int'l L. 11 (2006):

The production, marketing, and delivery of beverages are enterprises so vast that fully to comprehend [them] would require an almost universal knowledge ranging from geology, biology, chemistry and medicine to the niceties of the legislative, judicial and administrative processes of government. Queensboro Farm Prods., Inc. v. Wickard, 137 F.2d 969, 975 (2d Cir. 1943). So extensive are the legal complexities at issue that the typical North American coffee service traverses nearly the entire range of allocative and redistributive considerations within the law of trade. A simple carafe of coffee, with cream and sugar on the side, vividly illustrates the tradeoff between comparative advantage and redistributive goals in the formation of trade policies.

Coffee, tea, milk, or liquor: all law dissolves in the beverage of your choice.

Full post as published by Agricultural Law on November 15, 2007 (boomark / email).