IELTS Handbook 13 – Test 4

By the mid-1500s, coffee bushes were being cultivated in Yemen and for the next hundred years this region produced most of the coffee drunk in Africa and the Arab world. What’s particularly interesting about coffee is its effect on social life. It was rarely drunk at home, but instead people went to coffee houses to drink it. These people, usually men, would meet to drink coffee and chat about issues of the day. But at the time, this chance to share ideas and opinions was seen as something that was potentially dangerous, and (Q31) in 1623 the ruler of Constantinople demanded (=ordered) the destruction of all the coffee houses in the city (năm 1623, người cai trị Constantinople yêu cầu phá hủy tất cả các quán cà phê trong thành phố), although after his death many new ones opened, and coffee consumption continued. In the seventeenth century, coffee drinking spread to Europe, and here too (Q32) coffee shops became places where ordinary people, nearly always men, could meet to exchange ideas. Because of this, some people said that these places performed a similar function (=compared) to universities (quán cà phê trở thành nơi mà những người bình thường, gần như luôn luôn là nam giới, có thể gặp gỡ để trao đổi ý kiến. Chính vì vậy, một số ý kiến cho rằng những nơi này có  chức năng tương tự như các trường đại học). The opportunity they provided for people to meet together outside their own homes and to discuss the topics of the day had an enormous impact on social life, and (Q33) many social movements and political developments (=changes) had their origins in coffee house discussions. (nhiều phong trào xã hội và sự phát triển chính trị có nguồn gốc từ các cuộc thảo luận tại quán cà phê)

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In the late 1600s, the Yemeni monopoly on coffee production broke down and coffee production started to spread around the world, helped by European colonization. Europeans set up coffee plantations in Indonesia and the Caribbean and production of coffee in the colonies skyrocketed. Different types of coffee were produced in different areas, and (Q34) it’s interesting that the names given to these different types, like Mocha or Java coffee, were often taken from the port they were shipped to Europe from .(Điều thú vị là những cái tên được đặt cho những loại khác nhau này, như cà phê Mocha hoặc Java, thường được lấy từ cảng mà chúng được vận chuyển đến Châu Âu) But if you look at the labour system in the different colonies, there were some significant differences.

(Q35) In Brazil and the various Caribbean colonies, coffee was grown in huge plantations and the workers there were almost all slaves. (Ở Brazil và các thuộc địa khác nhau ở Caribe, cà phê được trồng trong các đồn điền lớn và công nhân ở đó hầu như là nô lệ) But this wasn’t the same in all colonies; for example (Q36) in Java, which had been colonized by the Dutch, the peasants grew coffee and passed a proportion of this on to the Dutch, so it was used as a means of taxation.(ở Java, nơi bị người Hà Lan đô hộ, nông dân trồng cà phê và chuyển một phần tỷ lệ này cho người Hà Lan, vì vậy nó được sử dụng như một phương tiện đánh thuế) But whatever system was used, under the European powers of the eighteenth century, coffee production was very closely linked to colonisation. (Q37) Coffee was grown in ever-increasing quantities to satisfy the growing demand from Europe, and it became nearly as important as sugar production(Cà phê được trồng với số lượng ngày càng tăng để đáp ứng nhu cầu ngày càng tăng từ châu Âu, và nó trở nên quan trọng như việc sản xuất đường), which was grown under very similar conditions. However, coffee prices were not yet low enough for people to drink it regularly at home, so most coffee consumption still took place in public coffee houses and it still remained something of a luxury item. In Britain, however, a new drink was introduced from China, and started to become popular, gradually taking over from coffee, although at first it was so expensive that only the upper classes could afford it. (Q38) This was tea, and by the late 1700s it was being widely drunk. However, when the USA gained independence from Britain in 1766, they identified this drink with Britain, and coffee remained the preferred drink in the USA (Đây là trà, và vào cuối những năm 1700, nó đã được uống rộng rãi. Tuy nhiên, khi Hoa Kỳ giành được độc lập từ Anh vào năm 1766, họ đồng nhất thức uống này với Anh, và cà phê vẫn là thức uống được ưa thích ở Hoa Kỳ), as it still is today.

So, by the early nineteenth century, coffee was already being widely produced and consumed. But during this century, production boomed and coffee prices started to fall.(Q39) This was partly because new types of transportation had been developed which were cheaper(=prices dropped) and more efficient (một phần là do các loại hình vận tải mới đã được phát triển rẻ hơn và hiệu quả hơn). So now, working people (=industrial workers) could afford to buy coffee – it wasn’t just a drink for the middle classes. And this was at a time when large parts of Europe were starting to work in industries. And (Q40) sometimes this meant their work didn’t stop when it got dark; they might have to continue throughout the night (Và đôi khi điều này có nghĩa là công việc của họ không dừng lại khi trời tối; họ có thể phải tiếp tục suốt đêm). So, the use of coffee as a stimulant became important – it wasn’t just a drink people drank in the morning, for breakfast.

There were also changes in cultivation …