Germany invented the social function of the afternoon called Kaffeeklatsch, and Ukers describes its popular Sunday version: the family walks to a suburban garden where coffee is sold by the pot. The keeper supplies coffee, cups, spoons and two lumps of sugar per cup, the customers bring their own cake; one lump goes in the cup and the other is taken home “for the canary,” that is, for the pantry sugar bowl. Other gardens post “families may cook their own coffee here,” and the customer then buys only the hot water.

Ukers 1922, ch. XXXV, p. 655-694

The German city café is a public reading room. Some keep hundreds of dailies available, and a customer who has bought only a cup holds his place there for hours. The cup thus pays less for the drink than for the seat and the newspaper.

At the crossing of Unter den Linden and the Friedrichstrasse, three of the four corners are occupied by cafés, and each has its own rule of the game.

• The old Kranzlerits downstairs room is reserved for nonsmokers.
• The Café Bauerknown the world over.
• The Victoriawhere most of the ladies light at least their escort's cigar.

Ukers 1922, ch. XXXV, p. 655-694

This attachment has a history of conflict. Frederick II published on September 13, 1777 a manifesto in which he expressed indignation at the quantity of coffee his subjects drank: “my people must drink beer.” In 1781, noting the failure, he created a royal monopoly and banned roasting outside royal establishments by an ordinance of January 21; the licenses went to the nobility, the clergy and civil servants, and became a social badge.

The administration employed wounded soldiers charged with tracking the smell of roasting coffee, with a quarter of the fine as salary: the people call them coffee sniffers.

Ukers 1922, ch. VIII, p. 45-48; manifesto of September 13, 1777; Déclaration du Roi concernant la vente du café brûlé, January 21, 1781; decree of the Elector of Cologne, February 17, 1784