Coffee and the Age of Reason

Instapundit has this link to a lecture that claims that the Age of Reason was fueled by coffee. In the eighteenth century, European society, or some of it, was in the process of switching from alcohol to coffee and tea, which they drank in coffeehouses.

It's a very plausible idea. Alcohol was the preferred drink because the water was so bad, and beer, unlike our beer, was a meal. There's a book on this, Let me think.