Coffee (Source Getty Images)
Ordinarily, we associate Bach's cantatas with church music—he wrote over 200 of them—but one stands firmly apart. The Coffee Cantata was not meant for St Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, where Bach worked as Kapellmeister and was probably performed by the Collegium Musicum in Zimmerman's coffee house in the city.
Essentially it's a comic opera in all but name, a father wanting to curb a coffee-loving young woman's desire for three cups of the caffeine-infused drink per day. The cantata's official title is Schweigt Stille, Plaudert Nicht (be still, stop chattering), a reference to the negative effect coffee had on the nerves. Eventually, the daughter persuades her father to draw up a marriage contract in which she is guaranteed her three cups.
Bach was supposed to be fond of the beverage himself—he was the director of the Collegium Musicum, which met onFriday evenings—and presumably, he wanted to stimulate his audience with his cantata about the once disapproved of beverage.