Producer and consumer become bonded together in an international trading relationship which, then as now, only served to empahasize the gulf between the richer and the poorer nations of the world.

The coffee houses represent an important step in the development of two interlinking features of modern society, the emergence as a major economic factor of both the hospitality and the leisure industries. The amazing rise in the popularity of coffee-drinking as well as tea, cocoa and chocolate was early evidence of the shrinking of the globe and the production of primary cash crops in what are now called developing countries for export to the advanced countries to meet the demand for luxury items. Producer and consumer became bonded together in an international trading relationship which, then as now, only served to emphasise the gulf between the richer and the poorer nations of the world.