More Than A Bundle Story

Historically, dating back to the Ottoman Empire the Coffee Houses have been a great importance as a place where the production of traditional folk culture were narrated and displayed as well as public education venues. An institution named ‘Kahvehane’ – ‘Coffee House’ where the occupancy are tea drinking men.

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At the time these coffee houses were divided in the customers social status, the intellectuals, the craftsman, the artists and so on. Whereas in London these Coffee Houses is a more humble affair where the regulars are made up of the working class and over the years have been set up geographically, depending on the city, village or town you are from. 

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When our dad’s first arrived to the UK, they spent most of their free time in the, Coffee Houses, the most common one I remember being Nadji’s Café in Newington Green. Before the satellite TV era the Coffee Houses served the space as a community centre – A space introducing factories with machinists, headlines from the homeland, news on sports and the wider socio – political issues of the time. All whilst drinking piping hot tea and playing backgammon and cards. Whilst today this information is at the tip of our fingers.