Prior to popularity of English coffee, beer, or ale, was morning beverage of choice among working class. The pubs and taverns were filled early in morning with workers who stopped in for a few pints of camaraderie before heading off to factories and shops around London.

One English writer wrote in 1624, "They flock to taverns to dizzy their brains and a productionless society is result." Fifty years later another writer credited English coffee with stimulating economy as he wrote, "Coffee drinking hath caused a greater sobriety than has ever been seen in business of London."

By late 18th century buzz of English coffee subsided and tea became preferred British drink, due much in part to outcry of women, who were excluded from all-male society of coffeehouse and complained loudly. A group of angry coffeehouse widows filed a petition with English government to ban coffee on grounds that their men were never at home and their duties as husband and father were being neglected. English coffee was not banned but outcry did have repercussions on coffeehouse business and men returned to taverns instead.

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Cocktails toothpick

1. Wash and slice a cucumber thickly then quarter it. Do not remove skin. Japanese cucumbers are best here. You might need 1 or 2 or even more cucumbers depending on how many guests you are inviting.
2. Wash some blueberries and strawberries. Cut some of strawberries into slices and rest of strawberries into cubes, for variety.

Yellow pineapples, red strawberries, blue blueberries and green skinned cucumbers provide your cocktail sticks with a pretty array of colors. Now you need meats.

Sliced canned sausages, halved fishballs,  fried prawns, sweet meats, ham, cubes of spam, grilled mushrooms or whatever you fancy would do nicely.

1. Get ready pretty plates to present your cocktail sticks in.
2. Poke toothpick into a berry, a slice of tomato, a pineapple cube or a cucumber piece. 
3. Then poke toothpick into

• a halved fishball,
• or a slice of sausage
• or a folded piece of ham
• or a slice of spam,
• or a grilled mushroom
• or a fried prawn
• or a sweet meat

Get creative. Make interesting things like sail boats with these sticks.

For a sailboat, ham could be sail, half a fishball, sausage or a slice of strawberry could be boat. A berry, pineapple or cucumber in between adds color to that creation.

When you can, invest in a set of beautiful dinnerware. These can be used over and over again and are a worthwhile investment if you entertain often. You might want to consider floral dinnerware for feminine touch or crystal dinnerware for very classy elegant touch. Whatever you serve on expensive looking dinnerware looks even more lavish.