There were genuine cafes in New York in the 1890's but they were confined primarily to the areas where the European immigrants lived, especially the lower East side, where men, even though they were not rich, could find time to sip coffee and play chess in the middle of the afternoon. Coffee also had a peculiarly wide range of price then (like today in some respects) : You could buy it at a penny a cup from the coffee stands or at 25 cents a cup at fancy restaurants. However, most drinkers believed that the goodness of the brew was not necessarily related to its price. To get a fantastic cup of coffe for only 1 cent was probably not possible, but getting bad coffee 25 cents a cup did happen a lot; on the lower East Side there were cafes where the coffee was considered to be excellent and a cup would only cost 5 cents a cup.
Additionally, New Yorkers had become so worldly that they could go to a wide variety of cosmopitan restaurants and order coffee made from recipes based on a large variety of international recipes. Mittel-European coffees, like those from Germany or Austria, were considered to be the best and least expensive (on the lower East Side, at least). A large concentration of cafes was found between Second Avenue and Avenue B and from First Street to Tenth Street - at least 20 cafes were operating there and you could get a delicious cup of coffee at any of them for 5 cents a cup. The coffee in those cafes was black and impregnable and was served with enough hot milk to fill the cup exactly to the brim. I doubt any of those shops had fancy machines like <a href="http://www.saecoespressomachinereview.com/saeco-coffee-maker">saeco coffee maker</a> however. The flavor of that brew was reported to be very sugary, but also fresh-tasting. The highest-rated cafes had a steady stream of coffee afficianados, beginning when they opened in the morning until closing time.
New York also boasted of some authentic French-style bistros that served coffee with mik , like the cafe au lait in restaurants in Paris. These French cafes made coffee in a somewhat elaborate way: you were brought a big coffee mug, a spoon, lots of sugar, a pot filled with dark coffee and chicory flavoring, and another pot with an a large amount of steamed milk. When the two were poured together into the bowl, a very delicious and smooth coffee drink was obtained. For cultured New Yorkers, a nice café au lait along with authentic Parisian bread with butter and jam provided a good for your health and nutritious breakfast.
Another alternative for those seeking excitement in their coffee was sampling Turkish coffee which could be found in the so-called "Arab district" of Washington Street (near the Hudson river). Turkish coffee, living up to its heritage, was made very strong and thick. The merchants in Washington Street, mostly of Syrian decent, would carry over the Arabian tradition of providing coffee to their stores's shoppers, much like in the Middle-eastern bazaars of their homeland.
The lower East Side coffee shops generally were thought to have such good cheap coffee because it was made well from diligently selected coffee "berries" (back then the beans were actually called by their correct name: berries). The cafes in that part of town served coffee that was full-bodied and pure coffee, not like some restaurants in New York's mid-town area that catered mainly to the lunch crowd. The people who went to these East Side cafes were inveterate consumers of coffee and drank it all day long to stay awake and alert, not as a part of the lunchtime meal.
If a coffee drinker from the 1890s were to show up today in New York, I am sure they would not recognize the transformation that Starbucks has wrought on their favorite beverage.
