Coffee: a Social Drug

Meet a friend in a coffee shop anywhere at anytime of time and 95% of the time, the friends will order coffee, even if they really don't want it or even end up drinking it.' Coffee sets the stage for conversation. 'Let meet for coffee,' a friend will say and that means 'we need to talk on a serious note.'

'I am going out for a cup of coffee somewhere and try to get my head together,' a confused mother might say. She means 'I want to escape somewhere where no one can find me for an hour or so.'


I wonder if we coffee lovers would use coffee as a social get-together if child labor was used to get the coffee beans.  For instance, in the early 1900s in America, child labor was used to sort out the coffee beans from the sweepings of the coffee manufacturer plant. 

From what I read at the Library of Congress, these children worked after school and on Saturdays and added their income to the family piggy bank.