THE HISTORY OF PARISIAN CAFES
Absinthe in the cafés

Every evening at about 6pm, on the terraces and boulevards, in Montmartre or other Latin district, sounds "the green hour".
We are in 1880. Men and women, young and old, from the chic saloons of Grand Cafés to the worker's cafés, the ritual of absinthe is common in billions of French cafés.

In order to taste absinthe properly you have to follow a particular ritual in preparation which the French of this magnificent era adopted with pleasure. You put a measure of absinthe in a shot glass which you place under one of the spouts of the fountain. Once open, the tap allows a stream of iced water to flow over the sugar placed previously on the glass, in a special spoon often finely worked silver. The water thus slowly dissolves the sugar in the drink and joins with the bitter taste of the plant.

The fashion of absinthe had been brought by the soldiers from the conquest of Algeria. Absinthe was in fact used for therapeutic purposes to treat the soldiers and colonists against typhoid and malaria. On returning to France, the officers of the Battalions of Africa didn't miss the chance to start the trend of absinthe by parading a glass in their hand on the terraces of the cafés of the Grands Boulevards. This cool, bitter drink unknown up to that moment, thoroughly intrigued passers by.

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