Coffee is cultivated in many countries lying between fifteen north and fifteen south latitude. It may be successfully grown thirty degrees from the equator. Like the tea plant, the coffee shrub favors the well watered mountain slopes. The trees are set in long, straight rows, six feet apart, and six feet from each other in the row. The coffee tree is naturally a plant with long, straggling shoots, but under cultivation it is pruned to make a shrub not exceeding six feet in height, with long, lateral branches. A full crop should be obtained the third year. The berries are gathered when the pulp begins to shrivel, and are at once taken to the store-house, where they are pulped. The berries are passed between large, rough rollers, which remove the pulp, but not the parchment-like covering of the seeds. The berries with the pulp removed are heaped up, covered with old sacking, and allowed to ferment for two days. Water is turned on and all glutinous matter removed. The seeds are spread out to dry, after which they are passed between wooden cylinders that remove the thin, dry covering. The coffee seeds, after being winnowed, are assorted into various sizes and packed ready for shipment. A thrifty shrub yields two pounds of marketable coffee. The raw coffee seed has a horny texture, without the peculiar aroma characteristic of the roasted berry.
The early history of coffee is obscure. It has been in use for over a thousand years. The knowledge of its use was first brought into Arabia from Abyssinia in the fifteenth century. “Its peculiar property of dissipating drowsiness and preventing sleep was taken advantage of in connection with the prolonged religious services of the Mohametans, and its use as a devotional antisoporific stirred up a fierce opposition on the part of the priests. Coffee was by them held to be an intoxicant beverage, and therefore prohibited by the Koran;[17] and the dreadful penalties of an outraged sacred law were laid over the heads of all who became addicted to its use. Notwithstanding the threats of divine retribution, and though all manner of devices were adopted to check its growth, the coffee-drinking habit spread rapidly among the Arabians, Mohametans, and the growth of coffee as well as its use as a national beverage became as inseparably associated with Arabia as tea is with China.” Coffee reached Great Britain in the seventeenth century. Charles II. attempted to suppress coffee houses by proclamation, because they “devised and spread abroad divers false, malicious and scandalous reports to the defamation of his Majesty’s government and to the peace and quiet of the nation.” How different is this view from that held by those interested in good government, peace and prosperity at the present day! We now rejoice in the establishment of coffee houses, hoping that they may supplant the much dreaded rum shops.
It is worthy of note here that the three dietetic beverages treated in this article were all introduced into Europe at nearly the same time. Tea came through the Dutch; cocoa was brought from South America to Spain, and coffee came from Arabia by the way of Constantinople.
Coffee was for some time supplied only by Arabia, but near the beginning of the eighteenth century its culture was introduced into Java and the West India islands. At the present day its culture is general within the tropics, Brazil leading the list in amount annually produced. In the Eastern hemisphere the principal coffee regions are Java and Ceylon, where a superior article is produced. The amount of coffee imported into the United States during the year ending June 30th, 1884, was 534,785,542 pounds, and 18,907,627 pounds in excess of the previous year. It is seen that these figures give nearly ten pounds for each individual in this vast country. This amount per capita is exceeded by only a few countries. Holland leads all European states, with an average of twenty-one pounds per head, followed closely by Belgium, Denmark and Norway.
The dietetic value of coffee depends principally upon the alkaloid caffeine or theine which it contains in common with tea and cocoa or chocolate. Good coffee contains nearly one per cent. of this substance. When obtained in a pure state it crystallizes in slender needles. The peculiar aroma of coffee is due to the presence of caffeone,[18] which develops in the process of roasting. It may be isolated as a brown oil, heavier than water, by distilling roasted coffee with water. The roasting of coffee is an operation requiring much good judgment, for by carrying the process beyond a certain point the aroma is destroyed and a disagreeable flavor is produced.
Roasted coffee when ground quickly deteriorates unless kept in close vessels. Mocha coffee, which is brought from Arabia, is the best, and that from Java ranks next. Much of the so-called Mocha coffee is raised in Brazil, or elsewhere, and shipped to Arabia, after which it finds its way into the markets. The berries of the true Mocha coffee are small, dark and yellow; those of Java are a paler yellow, while the West India and Brazilian coffees have a greenish-gray tint. The last named coffee is usually sold under the name of Rio, an abbreviation of the leading coffee exporting port of Brazil, namely, Rio de Janeiro; Martinique and St. Domingo coffees are two other kinds but little known.
Coffee is principally valuable for its stimulating effects upon the system. It produces a buoyancy of feeling, lightens the sensation of fatigue, and sustains the muscles when under prolonged exertion. A cup of rich, hot coffee seems to infuse new life into an o’er-tired body. Equally with tea it is “the cup that cheers, but not inebriates.”
“Coffee which makes the politician wise
And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.”