| has gloss | eng: Jamaica Wine House was the first coffee house in London . It is now a pub and is set within a labyrinth of medieval courts and alleys in the City of London. It has historic links with the sugar trade and slave plantations of the West Indies and Turkey. There is a plaque on the wall which reads Here stood the first London Coffee house at the sign of the Pasqual Rosees Head 1652. Rosee was a Ragusian manservant brought to London from Ottoman Smyrna by his former employer, Mr Daniel Edwards. The two fell out and Rosee went into business with another ex-servant, Edwards coachman. They opened a coffee house in 1652, known in some accounts as The Turks Head. The building which currently stands on the site is a 19th century public house. This pubs licence was acquired by Shepherd Neame and reopened after a restoration which finished in April 2009. |
