Here is the story for coffee. Coffeehouses were banned in Mecca from 1512 and 1524 before they became accepted. Then according to legend, opposition to imports of coffee lead to Pope Clement VIII being asked to ban it around 1600. He decided not to do so, and the rise of coffee houses came later. Then in both England and Germany, coffeehouses were seen as such places of disrepute that women were banned from going to them!
On refrigerators, early refrigerators used ammonia, which was toxic if it leaked. And early designs did leak. This lead to valid safety concerns. Concerns that were later addressed by the invention of freon. (Which is an unbelievably safe chemical for everything except the ozone layer!)
Then in both England and Germany, coffeehouses were seen as such places of disrepute that women were banned from going to them!
To be fair to our German and British friends, depending on how coffee was introduced (sailors/pirates), they may actually have been places of disrepute.....
Those things don't mean that people didn't want or use coffee; in fact, it probably means the opposite, or they wouldn't have been a ban. And refrigeration wasn't held up because people didn't want it, it was because the technology wasn't very good.
Here is the story for coffee. Coffeehouses were banned in Mecca from 1512 and 1524 before they became accepted. Then according to legend, opposition to imports of coffee lead to Pope Clement VIII being asked to ban it around 1600. He decided not to do so, and the rise of coffee houses came later. Then in both England and Germany, coffeehouses were seen as such places of disrepute that women were banned from going to them!
On refrigerators, early refrigerators used ammonia, which was toxic if it leaked. And early designs did leak. This lead to valid safety concerns. Concerns that were later addressed by the invention of freon. (Which is an unbelievably safe chemical for everything except the ozone layer!)