Coffee Culture 咖啡文化
Coffee Culture 咖啡文化
◎ Alex
“Give me a decaf triple venti, 2 pump vanilla, non-fat, extra hot, stirred, no foam caramel macchiato with whip cream and caramel sauce top and bottom.”
“给我来一杯三倍浓缩、两份香草、低咖啡因的超大杯无泡脱脂焦糖玛奇朵咖啡，需要高温混匀，再淋上焦糖跟奶油。”
If you happen to be standing in one of the ubiquitous Starbucks or Coffee Bean chains in the US, chances are pretty good you might hear someone order something like this. The advent of big business coffee powerhouses like Starbucks has transformed coffee-drinking into an extremely popular and profitable industry that is quickly spreading across the globe. Like other successful consumer-oriented businesses with a stranglehold on modern culture (iPod and Google come to mind), big coffeehouse businesses have made their product increasingly user-friendly, highly customizable, and readily accessible to people all around the world.
星巴克或香啡缤咖啡连锁店在美国随处可见，如果你碰巧在店里，就会听到有人这样点单。类似星巴克这种大型咖啡连锁店的出现，已经把喝咖啡包装成一种高利润大众产业，并在全球范围内迅速推广。就像那些消费导向型的成功企业，比如我们马上想到的iPod和谷歌，时刻左右着现代文化的走向，大型咖啡连锁店的产品越来越便利、越来越个性化，同时也越来越适宜在全世界推广。
Coffee has a history dating back to at least the 9th century and has been a catalyst for social interaction across cultures and eras. Originally discovered in Ethiopia, coffee beans were brought into the Middle East by Arab traders, spreading to Egypt, Yemen, Persia, Turkey, and North Africa by the 15th century. Muslim merchants eventually brought the beans to the thriving port city of Venice, where they sold them to wealthy Italian buyers. Soon, the Dutch began importing and growing coffee in places like Java and Ceylon (largely through slave labor), and the British East India Trading Company was popularizing the beverage in England. Coffee spread across Europe and even reached America.
咖啡的历史至少可以追溯到9世纪，当时咖啡是跨文化跨时代、促进社会交流的催化剂。咖啡豆最初发现于埃塞俄比亚，后经阿拉伯商人传至中东地区，时至15世纪，便已遍及埃及、也门、波斯、土耳其及北非各国。穆斯林商贩接着把咖啡豆传到了繁荣的港口城市威尼斯，卖给意大利的有钱人。不久，荷兰人开始进口咖啡豆，并在爪哇和锡兰等地种植，劳力基本上都是奴隶。大不列颠东印度贸易公司将咖啡饮料在英格兰普及开来。随后，咖啡传遍欧洲，甚至远达美洲。
Where there has been coffee, there has been the coffeehouse. From the 15th century Middle Eastern establishments where men gathered to listen to music, play chess, and hear recitations from works of literature, to Paris’ Cafe le Procope where luminaries of the French Enlightenment such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot came to enjoy a hot cup of Joe, coffeehouses have traditionally served as centers of social interaction, places where people can come to relax, chat, and exchange ideas.
哪里有咖啡，哪里就有咖啡馆。从15世纪中东地区的人们聚在一起听音乐、下棋、听述文学作品的公共场所，到法国启蒙运动时期诸如伏尔泰、卢梭、狄德罗这种赫赫有名的大人物品尝热咖啡的巴黎普洛科普咖啡馆，足见咖啡馆自古就是人们休闲、聊天、交流思想的社交中心。
The modern coffee shop is modeled on the espresso and pastry-centered Italian coffeehouses that arose with the establishment of Italian-American immigrant communities in major US cities such as New York City’s Little Italy and Greenwich Village, Boston’s North End, and San Francisco’s North Beach. New York coffee shops were often frequented by the Beats in the 1950’s. It wasn’t long before Seattle and other parts of the Pacific Northwest were developing coffee shops as part of a thriving counterculture scene. The Seattle-based Starbucks took this model and brought it into mainstream culture.
现代咖啡馆的模式源自主营浓缩咖啡和油酥点心的意大利咖啡馆，随着意大利裔移民社区在美国各大城市的建立，这种咖啡厅也陆续落户于纽约的小意大利、格林尼治村、波斯顿的北端和旧金山的北滩区等地。20世纪50年代，纽约咖啡馆成为“垮掉的一代”常常光顾的地方。不久之后，西雅图和太平洋西北岸其他地区咖啡馆的也蓬勃发展起来，为欣欣向荣的反主流文化大潮推波助澜。源自西雅图的星巴克借鉴了这一模式，把咖啡馆引入主流文化。
Although coffeehouses today continue to serve their traditional purpose as lively social hubs in many communities, they have noticeably adapted to the times. Rediscovering their purpose as centers of information exchange and communication, many coffee shops now provide their customers with internet access and newspapers. It has become extremely common to see someone sitting at a Starbucks listening to music or surfing the web on his or her laptop. Coffee stores today also maintain a fairly identifiable, yet unique aesthetic: wooden furniture and plush couches, paintings and murals drawn on walls, and soft-lighting combine to give coffee shops the cozy feeling of a home away from home.
尽管今天的咖啡馆在很多地方依旧扮演着社交活动中心的传统角色，但显而易见，它们一直在与时俱进。现在的许多咖啡店又重新成为信息交换和思想交流中心，为顾客提供网络服务和报刊杂志。在星巴克里听歌或者用笔记本电脑上网，似乎已经成了司空见惯的现象。今天的咖啡店仍然保持着一种易于辨识且独具特色的审美品味：木质的家具，松软的沙发，墙上的油画和壁画，再加上柔和的灯光，为整个咖啡馆营造出一种居家般的温馨氛围。
Today, big business retail coffee shops are expanding quickly all over the world. Starbucks alone has stores in over 40 countries and plans to add more. Despite its popularity, Starbucks has been criticized and labeled by many as a blood-sucking corporate machine, driving smaller coffee shops out of business through unfair practices. This has even spawned an anti-corporate coffee counterculture, with those subscribing to this culture boycotting big business coffee chains. Increasingly popular coffee stores such as The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf are also giving Starbucks some stiff competition. In any case, it seems pretty clear that coffee has weaved itself into the fabric of our consumer-oriented culture.
今天，大型零售咖啡店正在全球迅速扩张，仅星巴克一家就在全球40多个国家设立了分店，同时还在筹划开设更多的分店。星巴克尽管十分流行，但常被人们贴上“吸血机器”的标签，人们对他们通过不公平竞争挤兑小型咖啡店的行为诟病不已。这些批判之声甚至形成一股反企业咖啡的反主流风潮，支持者们大力抵制大型商业咖啡连锁店。再加上，香啡缤和茶叶这类咖啡店越来越受大众欢迎，也对星巴克构成了强有力的竞争。无论如何，咖啡显然已经融入我们的消费主义文化，并成为了其不可分割的一部分。
Coffee, it would seem, is more than just a drink. From early on after its inception, coffee has been tied closely with cultural trends and has been indicative of important periods in history. It was poured into the cups of the giants of the French Enlightenment as they changed the course of human thought, it was placed on the backs of Brazilian slaves in the era of Imperialism, it’s fragrance was in the air as Beat poets like Kerouac and Ginsberg wrote of their alienation, and it is here now as the world continues to change in this era of technology and globalization. So the next time you enjoy your latte or your ice-cold caramel frappuccino, appreciate the fact that you are connected to countless numbers of people spanning many different cultures and eras through your love of that wondrous beverage: coffee.
咖啡似乎不再只是单纯的饮料了。咖啡刚一出现，就和文化潮流紧密相连，成为历史重要时期的表征之一。法国启蒙运动时期，文学巨匠们改变人类思想轨迹时，杯子里斟满的是咖啡；帝国主义时期，压弯巴西奴隶们背脊的是咖啡；垮掉派诗人凯鲁亚克、金斯伯格书写他们的离经叛道时，空气中弥漫的也是咖啡的香气；即便是在科技和全球化不断改变着世界的今日，见证这一切的还是咖啡。因此，当你下次享用拿铁或冰焦糖星冰乐时，请想象一下，你正与诸多跨文化跨时代的伟人沟通交流，而这种美妙的体验，正来自你对咖啡这种神奇饮料的热爱。
