It was not, however, until towards the year 1645, that it began to be drunk in Italy. The first cafés were opened in London in 1652, and in Paris in 1669, a time at which a pound of coffee was worth forty crowns. It was principally Soliman Aga, the ambassador from Turkey, who caused coffee to become fashionable in Paris.
It penetrated into Sweden in the year 1674, where it was thought of use in scorbutic diseases. The first person who made trial of coffee with milk was Nieuhoff, the Dutch ambassador in China, in imitation of tea with milk.
“The physical effects of coffee are well known: it accelerates the circulation of the blood, but sometimes causes palpitation of the heart and giddiness; it has even been thought to occasion apoplexy and paralysis. Nevertheless, celebrated writers—such as Fontenelle and Voltaire—made constant use of it, almost to an abuse. They were told, it is a slow poison; it was indeed slow for these learned men, who died, the one at a hundred, the other eighty-four years of age. However, at the present time coffee is a beverage whose power over our intellectual or moral habits has, perhaps, never been calculated as it deserves, since it has become general, and almost suppressed the drunkenness which disgraced our ancestors at the end of their grand repasts.”—Virey.
The subject we have just slightly touched upon recalls to our recollection a whim of the charming Sévigné: “Le café et Racine passeront,” said this amiable lady, nearly two hundred years ago. The beautiful marchioness was mistaken: both coffee and Racine have remained, and do not appear likely soon to bid us adieu.
CHOCOLATE.
Every one is aware that chocolate is an aliment obtained from the cocoa-nut, roasted and reduced to paste, with sugar and aromatics.
But first, the choice of cocoa nuts is not indifferent.
Those from Soconusco, from Caracas, and Maracaibo, are the best and sweetest; it is, however, well to mix with them other kinds, to correct their insipidity by a certain sharpness far from being unpleasant; thus, to four parts of Caracas cocoa, earthed—that is, rendered mild by a sojourn of some weeks under the moist earth—a part of cocoa from the Antilles, or Maragnon and Para, is added; this kind contains more of sharp and bitter matter. These cocoas are slightly torrefied in an iron pan. The Spaniards burn their cocoa much less than the Italians. Being left to grow cold, this cocoa is slightly crushed, to separate the envelopes or shells, which are thrown away. However, in England, Switzerland, and Germany, these shells serve to make, with boiling water, a warm infusion, mixed with milk and drank in lieu of real chocolate. The envelopes of torrefied coffee are employed in a similar manner in the east for the “Sultana coffee.” The mixtures of torrefied cocoa are reduced into a fat paste of a brown colour, either between stones, or by means of an iron roller upon a porphyry rock, warmed underneath by live coals; this paste, regularly ground, is at last incorporated with sugar, equal to its weight, then it is mixed together as perfectly as possible. In this chocolat de santé a small quantity of very fine cinnamon powder is admitted, which makes it more palatable, and neutralizes the action of the fat and heavy substance, or vegetable butter, contained in the cocoa.
“The term chocolate belongs, it is said, to the language of the Mexicans, and is derived from the two words choco, sound or noise, and atle, water, because it is beaten in boiling water to make it froth, according to the custom of this people. Before their conquest by the Spaniards, it formed the principal aliment of the Mexicans. They held the cocoa tree in such estimation, that its kernel served as current coin, and this custom even now remains.”—Humboldt.