In my continuous search for a coffee shop that matches my psychological criteria for working remotely, and after a lot of search for weeks, I found what I was looking for, in the charming center of Istanbul in the European part, an Arabic coffee shop many kilometers away from my house
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| taken by the autohr |
It takes about an hour to an hour and a half to reach the café by public transportation, from the metro bus to the tramway, then on foot for two minutes to reach it. The café directly overlooks the sea with a wonderful view for sitting and working. It provides you with a comfortable sitting and many options for food, drinks, and sweets, I do not know why I found this is my perfect café choice, perhaps the design of the café, the lighting, and the furniture give a warm feeling and plays a big role for me when finding a café
This café was not my first choice, but the closest option was the best in the beginning. I later decided to find a comfortable environment for me instead of the closest one. I devoted days to searching for suitable cafes, through Google Maps ، found many vast options, to start my exploration tours, from small to large cafes, beautiful and gloomy that provided a corner for those who want to work or study,
and some were creative in delivering a traditional Turkish character in design and adding traditional Turkish sweets, others took the Western and French style from the croissants, macarons, and some traditional French sweets, and with these wide options I found Only a few cafes are suitable for sitting and working in
Although I enjoy working from the café now, I never liked the concept of studying and working in a café, for me, it was limited to hanging out with friends, I did not understand when I passed a café how people could work or study among all this chaos
after the Corona pandemic, about a year and a half ago, I started visiting cafes to drink my favorite iced coffee and to write some simple things on my phone, and shockingly I was surprised at the speed of my achievement and my concentration in a short time, and since that day I started going to cafes to work, write and accomplish some tasks, and to obtain a comfortable social atmosphere
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| taken by me |
Thousands of people come daily to cafes, carrying their computers or study papers, with cups of coffee, in preparation for sitting for long hours here.
The smell of coffee when you enter, the voices of people, the soft music playing in the background, and the beautiful designs of cafes have created a home for many of us and a pleasant alternative to traditional work offices.
But why did coffee shops become the first choice for work instead of offices? The question sparked an interest in me to find out
To depart from the traditional pattern of offices imposed on the employee, major companies like Google and Facebook studied offices that can provide greater productivity and innovation for their employees by adding more comfort in the principle of modern offices possessing greater freedom of movement and less formality than traditional offices, And it was keen to establish headquarters in the same style in all its branches in the countries of the world, taking into account that the place must overlook stunning natural scenery and close to the metro and vital places in the town
after the pandemic ended it helped to recreate a new identity by shaping the essence of office working, which is remote working, many liked to continue with this style of work, while others found that offices are the best option for working instead of sitting at home, while some ended up merging the two things. Reducing the working days per week to four and reducing the number of long working hours
Between this and that, many people found that the wider space for them is the coffee shops
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| photo by Matteo Steger from unsplash |
Umniah from Syria, 23 years old. She completed her bachelor’s degree and studying for a master’s degree. She lives alone, far from her family who lives in Saudi Arabia, Omnia sits next to me sometimes, and after we chatted a bit, I decided to ask her why she’s a frequent visitor to the cafés, so she tells me that “it is loneliness.” In a café, you get three advantages in one: the general atmosphere, food, and focus.”
Engineering student Hamza, who visits cafes periodically to study, says that cafes gave him a greater opportunity to focus and to complete the materials in a relatively faster time than any other place, confirming that “The atmosphere provided inside the cafes is what helps you in completing projects as well as more freedom in controlling your time.”
Research from the University of Oxford in 2012 shows that a moderate level of ambient noise, such as the clatter of dishes and the hum of a coffee machine, improves performance and makes these spaces effective environments for work.
recent research from van der Groen, published in March 2019, shows that background-noise-induced sensory signals help the brain break out of a mental rut to see things from new perspectives.
There is also the fact that in a coffee shop we may be surrounded by people who have come to do the same thing as us, which acts as a great motivator for us to stay focused.
a study was published after an experiment by the Department of Psychology at the University of Leuven in Belgium in 2016, on a group of participants who were asked to sit next to each other to do a task on a computer screen that, conducted that “just performing a task next to someone who puts an effort into a task will make you do the same and improve your performance”
Also, there is the architectural style of the café, which plays an important role, as the Barista Canadian Center for Coffee emphasized the importance of creating a unique, visually beautiful, and psychologically comfortable design, such as choosing appropriate lighting, music, colors, and small pleasant details affecting the senses
“The goal of entering the café is to create a special experience for each customer because it’s not just a financial transaction or obtaining a product.”
A newer idea for popular cafes
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| from unsplash |
Arabic coffee houses formed an important popular memory for the people, it was a place for entertainment, exchanging news and stories, meeting friends and acquaintances, spending leisure time for some, and a revolutionary place for others. They are visited by young and old, rich and poor.
It is usually crowded with men, each group sits around at a round or square table playing either playing cards or dominoes, and the majority smoke cigarettes or water pipes and serve tea in abundance, and on some occasions, it becomes like a big festival where people of the neighborhood come to witness these events
Until this time, coffeehouses remained serving regular coffee and were limited to certain people of society, mostly dedicated to men or the elderly and retirees, until the end of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after the spread of American and European multinational companies, cafes spread in their modern form, making a new concept for the coffee shop and providing a General space for all, especially the young people resort
The twentieth century did not only change the shape of coffee shops, but also gave us a new way of preparing coffee, after the entry of espresso to European countries in the early twentieth century specifically in Venice, Italy 1903, the drink was created by businessman Luigi Bezerra who was experimenting with coffee to see how to make his brew faster, and to create a much stronger drink
The new process extracted the best quality coffee beans, and Bezerra soon called the “Quick Coffee Machine”. Since the Italian word “espresso” translates to (fast) in English, the name of the drink originates from the first machine.
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| by Richard bill from Unsplash |
From espresso, coffee shops were born in the form we know today. The famous Costa coffee shop was opened in (Dunstable) London, England, in 1971 by the brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa, coming from Italy to London to create a new experience and make a wonderful taste of coffee.
Later Starbucks opened its doors in the historic (Pike Place) market in Seattle in 1971 as a roaster for selling coffee beans, and in 1980 it moved to a café that served espresso, and the two stores included a chain of multiple cafes, spreading their branches in both London and the United States
history of coffee shops
In its initial form, coffeehouses arose as political and social gatherings, during the Ottoman rule in Damascus and Makkah in the late fourteenth century. People did not have a place designated for them, and the public space was limited to mosques. so come the coffeehouses to provide a wider space for all, to exchange news and discuss politics
Years later, the first coffee shop was opened in Istanbul in the middle of the sixteenth century, under the name “Kiva Han”, as a place to meet, exchange conversations listen to songs, people were allowed to express their ideas, and discuss social issues, soon coffee house becomes a competitor to bars at the time, replacing drinking Alcohol with coffee, so people called coffee the alcohol of Muslims.
From Istanbul, coffee beans traveled to Europe in the seventeenth century, to Vienna, Italy, as the history of coffeehouse culture in Vienna was closely linked to the end of the Siege of Vienna in 1683, Legend has it that the Viennese citizen Georg Franz Kolschitzky was the first to obtain a license to serve coffee in the city following his heroic actions during the Siege of Vienna. The coffee beans left behind by the Turks were the basis of his success.
In Britain, coffeehouses represented a cultural and revolutionary place, accompanied by cultural and political discussions, in which thinkers, artists, writers, and the general public gathered.
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