Thread: Coffee!
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Old 10-28-2006, 05:39 PM   #90
Fordim Hedgethistle
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Join Date: Feb 2004
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Fordim Hedgethistle has been trapped in the Barrow!
Lal m'dear,

Quote:
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.

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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).

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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.

Quote:
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!
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