Cappuccino conquests
This website presents our research project ‘The Cappuccino Conquests. The Transnational History of Italian Coffee’.
The Project Director (Principal Investigator) was Professor Jonathan Morris, Research Professor in Modern European History at the University of Hertfordshire. The project ran from September 2004 to February 2007 as part of the Cultures of Consumption research programme, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
The project traced the history of Italian style coffee drinks from the origins of espresso in the 1900s through to the global popularity of cappuccino and caffè latte today. Their success was explained through reference to the material properties of the beverages themselves, the surroundings in which they were served, and the meanings constructed around them. By reconstructing the ‘commodity biography’ of espresso, the project demonstrated how innovation in the production and preparation of the beverages interacted with changes in social practices and perceptions within consumer societies to create a diversity of local cultures of consumption.
You can download an illustrated summary of the project here.
A full copy of the final project report can be downloaded here.
This website is currently under reconstruction. If you would like further details on the project please contact Professor Morris via email at j.2.morris@herts.ac.uk.