Database and Data Mining for Coffee Shops in Egypt

Abstract

Coffee or “ahwa” was first introduced in the Arab world during the 14th century; and it was spread out to the rest of the world later on in the 17th century (Francis, 2013). However, in Egypt it was not served in public places until it was available in large quantities and those places or coffee shops were named “ahwa” after the name of the beverage (Alpion, Gezim, 2011). Men go there more than women and they like to drink tea or coffee/“ahwa”, smoke Hookah (water pipes or “shisha”), play table games (e.g. backgammon or dominos), and read the newspaper (National Geographic, retrieved 2013). In the 20th century there was a trend to use them as a place for political and social debates (Alpion, Gezim, 2011). Also in the 20th century some modern coffee shops started to emerge in Egypt such as Cilantro and Starbucks. This study is only focusing on those modern coffee shops (note that in some studies the traditional coffee shops are referred to as “modern” contrary to this study).