Coffee Was Liquid Viagra Back In The 17th Century

These days, coffee is linked to relieving headaches and is said to prevent the top leading illnesses such as depression, breast cancer, and diabetes. One thing we weren’t banking on being attributed to coffee is sex.

According to findings, coffee was the 17th Century’s version of Viagra. Matthew Green of the Public Domain Review decided to share the earliest print of a coffee shop in London. In England, coffee was said to be pretty popular, and, by 1652, a coffee shack was opened up. Fast forward two years later, and there was at least 600 cups served in a day. Not too shabby.

So where does the Viagra to coffee comparison come in? According to Green, an interesting petition started because of coffee’s popularity called Women’s Petition Against Coffee. Green went on to document this petition and the risqué results that followed:

“In 1674, years of simmering resentment erupted into the volcano of fury that was the Women’s Petition Against Coffee. The fair sex lambasted the ‘Excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE’ which, as they saw it, had reduced their virile industrious men into effeminate, babbling, French layabouts.

“Retaliation was swift and acerbic in the form of the vulgar Men’s Answer to the Women’s Petition Against Coffee, which claimed it was ‘base adulterate wine’ and ‘muddy ale’ that made men impotent. Coffee, in fact, was the Viagra of the day, making “the erection more vigorous, the ejaculation more full, add[ing] a spiritual ascendency to the sperm.”

No word if a cup of Folgers coffee in the morning has the same effect, but we’re willing to take Matthew Green’s word for it.

Other ties to coffee includes the boosting of brainpower, the speeding up of one’s metabolism, and an extra boost to help you process words faster.

[Image credit: Happydancing/ Shutterstock]