I’ve got a new article up on the Liberty Fund website: “Bach’s Ode to Caffeine.” Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantata, “Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht,” more often known in English as the “Coffee Cantata,” was likely first performed at Zimmermann’s Coffeehouse, where he was a regular performer. It’s a miniature comic opera in which a father wages a one-man War on Coffee.

If you’d like to hear the cantata, I highly recommend this performance on YouTube: