The first coffee beans appear to have been introduced to France in Marseille by French traders returning from an extended sojourn in the Levant around 1660. These traders decided they could not live without coffee and imported for their own use, and then for others. Marseille is where the first French café was founded. Eventually the drink found its way to Paris in 1669, via the Ottoman ambassador, who held opulent parties featuring the drink. But it was an Armenian, Pascal who was successful in marketing the dark, invigorating liquid, first at the fair in St. Germain, and then in a small cafe. The earliest “upper class” cafe was Procope’s, opened in 1686. Coffee, already fashionable in London and Amsterdam, was finally coming into its own in Paris in oriental style cafés.