The Coffee Cantata is a comic opera. Composed in Leipzig in 1734 or 1735 to a libretto by Picander (Christian Friedrich Henrici) who also provided texts to many of Bach’s church cantatas. It was presumably written for performance at on of the Friday evening meetings of the university collegium Musicum at Zimmerman’s coffee house.

The story of the cantata is very simple. Schlendrian is irritated by his daughter Lieschen’s coffee drinking habit and tries the usual cajoleries, threats and bribes, finally resorting to trying to prevent her marriage unless she gives up coffee. Lieschen, of course, twists her father around her little finger and ends up with both a husband and a pre-nuptial agreement that allows her to drink coffee whenever she wants.