This is a  good 18th century lignum vitae  coffee grinder in full working order, having a folding handle on the top.  This can be stored in the base when not in use. The lower section has a screw thread to gain access to the metal grinder and the base  to retrieve any ground coffee or as said before, to house the folding handle. This lovely grinder has a lovely colour and patina the lovely crackled effect that old lignum vitae goes over several hundreds of years.
C1770
This has a good provenance having been part of the Levi collection with one of his collection labels on the base.
This coffee grinder measures approx 15cm h x 10.5cm w at the base.
 
The first coffee house was believed to have opened in the UK in Oxford 1651/2 closely followed by one opening in London. Coffee houses began to spring up all over London and in cities around the Uk. They were meeting places for men, women were excluded from these coffee houses, and so was alcohol! Men would meet to conduct business, discuss politics, science, poetry and news. Interestingly each coffee house or coffee clubs, these were similar, but you paid a subscription fee and has an elected committee, had specific customers e.g. St James Coffee House attracted the Whigs whereas around Covent Gardens the literary and actors tended to go. After about the mid 18th century coffee became popular
 
Coffee beans initially were crushed by a pestle and mortar which was very time consuming hence creating a demand for a mechanical coffee grinder. Sometime between 1657 and 59 a gentleman called Nicholas Brook living in St Tulies's Street London was the only known man to be making mills for grinding the coffee to powder. they were expensive being between 40 to 45 shillings per mill. They were however of very well made using lignum vitae wood, which in itself was very expensive at that time, and also they had grinding cogs of hand forged steel.