The cylinder for roasting coffee, which one cannot pass through the streets of Paris without seeing constantly at work, has been in use since 1687. The love of novelty is so great in that capital, that when coffee was first introduced, two methods were adopted of preparing it: one, the ordinary method now in use; the other, a method said to prevail in the seraglio at Constantinople, for the mistresses of the Grand Signor. This consists in boiling for a certain time in hot water, not the grain itself, but the shell or pod which envelopes it. This method affords a liquor of an agreeable colour to the eye, but it yields a pale and flavourless coffee, though decorated with the name of café à la sultane. Blegny invented, in 1687, a distilled coffee water, an oil, and a syrup of coffee. Under the Regent Orleans, coffee sweetmeats were invented, to appear at dessert; and a few years afterwards the distillateurs of Montpelier made a liqueur, produced after dessert, which they called eau de café, whose odour resembled roasted coffee. There were also tablettes de café, which were eaten before the liqueurs. There were and are medical men who, from the time of its introduction to our day, have not ceased to sound the alarm as to the unwholesomeness of coffee; but I think with old Lémery, that “coffee fortifies the stomach and brain, promotes digestion, allays the headache, suppresses the fumes caused by wine, makes the memory and fancy more quick, and people brisk that drink it.” This last effect, says he, has been observed by the shepherds of Africa, who took notice, that before coffee was used, and that their sheep fed upon this kind of pulse, that they skipped about strangely.[24]
I shall close my observations on coffee by giving a receipt of Dr. Roques for a café à la crême frappé de glace. It is a delicious breakfast during the summer heats. Here it is:—“Make a strong infusion of Mocha or Bourbon coffee; put it in a porcelain bowl, sugar it properly, and add to it an equal portion of boiled milk, or one-third the quantity of a rich cream. Surround the bowl with pounded ice.” Doctor Bonnafous, of Perpignan, recommended this beverage to such persons as had lost their appetite, or who experienced general debility. This agreeable epicurean one day said to a patient, Dr. Roques, who was himself in the profession,—“Study, my friend, that which is good, that which pleases your palate. Try to become a little friand; commence a series of gastronomic experiments without infringing a regimen. You will be the better for it, and in certain circumstances you will exercise on sickly people inclined to gourmandise an unlimited power. Breakfast during July, August, and a part of September, on iced coffee, and in winter on woodcock soup. This is a regimen with which I restored to health and sense an aged canon who had nearly lost all appetite, and who was disgusted with life.”
Brillat Savarin recommends that coffee should be taken in the dinner-room, as thus served it is hotter. This may be so in establishments where there are an insufficient number of servants; but in good houses in England, where there is a regular establishment of servants, coffee is served quite as hot in the drawing-room, library, or salon, as in the dining-room or salle a manger. Coffee should be hot, clear, and strong; and, like every other good thing, be taken in moderation. Morin, in his “Manuel d’Hygiene,” says, “Quelle que soit son action sur l’estomac, il en est du café comme de toute autre chose, il faut en user et ne pas en abuser.” Tea is much more generally taken after dinner in England than coffee, and it is a beverage deemed more wholesome and more agreeable by the great majority of Englishmen. Cowper’s lines in the “Task,” on the winter evening cup of tea, will recur to the reader.
“Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each;
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.”
