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Rabbi Ami was dismayed because Rabbi Yehuda Nesia drank water heated by a gentile cook [kapeila], didn’t Shmuel bar Yitzḥak say that Rav said: With regard to anything that is eaten raw, like water, even if it was cooked by a gentile, it is not subject to the prohibition against eating food cooked by gentiles?
Rabbi Yaakov Emden in his sefer Mor U’ktziah (204) writes that actually the proper blessing on coffee should be ha’eitz since it is a fruit from a tree and that was the original intent of those that planted the coffee beans; to drink from the liquid. He concludes that the custom is to recite a shehakol anyway, similar to date beer and barley beer.
We explore the halochos of hot water on shabbos and drinking coffee on planes and caffe houses, followed by a review of the chemistry and health of coffee consumption.
We end on the colonial history of coffee and the history of slavery and the culture of the coffee house in Jewish history and modernity.