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30
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
MAY | JUNE 2017
the
Coffee
issue
H
ow a Louisiana version of coffee and chicory made its
way onto Vietnamese menus all over the world is a great
example of how immigrants absorb — and influence —
local food and customs.
Louisiana was first claimed by France in 1682, and though the
French drank coffee their American counterparts preferred
tea. That was true until the early 1770s, when the British levied
outrageous taxes on tea imports and Samuel Adams and the Sons
of Liberty threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. Drinking
coffee suddenly became a patriotic duty.
By 1860 Louisiana belonged to the United States. New Orleans
was one of its largest cities and took the title of the nation’s second-
largest importer of coffee in the country. Coffee had become a large
part of the city’s culture but a Union naval blockade in the American
Civil War cut off the port of New Orleans and the area’s coffee
supply quickly ran short.
The French were familiar with coffee shortages, having endured
their own during Napoleon’s Continental Blockade, and quickly
passed along the use of chicory — a plant native to France — in
coffee to New Orleans.
Café
Sua Da
by
Marcy, Rouses Creative Director