Coffee is the subject of many adulterations, usually when sold in the ground state. Several kinds of seeds resembling coffee in size have been employed to adulterate the whole coffee, some of which need to be colored before they will pass for the genuine. Many kinds of roots are sliced, dried and roasted for the adulteration of coffee, among the leading ones of which are chicory, carrot and the beet. Spent tanbark and even dried beef’s liver have been thus employed. Many of these fraudulent additions can be detected with the microscope. Ground coffee floats on water, while most of the adulterations will sink or discolor the water. There is said to be a machine in England for making false berries out of vegetable substance.
Chocolate.—The chocolate of the shops is derived from a small evergreen tree, native of South America, Mexico, and West Indias. This tree, Theobroma cacao, has large, pointed leaves and rose-colored flowers, which are followed by fruit pods six to ten inches long. The first part of the botanical name is from the Greek meaning “food for the gods,” and the second or specific word cacao is the old Mexican name for the tree. The order Sterculiaceæ[19] to which the theobroma or chocolate tree belongs is not represented in our flora. It however is known to many by a species of Mahernia[20] from the cape of Good Hope, cultivated in conservatories. The order contains about 520 species, nearly all of which are tropical. The long pods, while green, resemble cucumbers, and when ripe contain from thirty to an hundred seeds, arranged in rows, and of the size of sweet almonds. During the season of ripening the pods are gathered daily, laid in heaps until they have fermented, when they are opened by hand and the seeds spread in the sun to dry, after which they are ready for market. Before the Spaniards visited Mexico the natives made a beverage from the seeds, which they called chocalat, and from this we derived our word chocolate. The Spaniards have the credit of introducing this beverage into Europe. In the manufacture of chocolate the cocoa (which is a corruption of the original Mexican cacao) beans are roasted similar to the roasting of coffee, and after the husk is removed they are reduced to a paste. This paste is afterward mixed with equal quantities of sugar and heated and turned into cakes of various shapes familiar to all housekeepers. Cacao nibs are the bruised and broken seeds, and cocoa shells are the thin coverings of the seeds or beans which are separated before the seeds are ground to powder. Broma is chocolate prepared for the market in a certain way, and is a trade name.
The importations of chocolate for the year ending June 30th were 12,235,304 pounds, being an increase of nearly thirty-five per cent. over the previous year.
Of the three leading beverages herein briefly described tea is the only one that has been grown as a crop in the United States. In a reply to an inquiry recently addressed to the Commissioner of Agriculture, it was stated that the tea plant is hardy at Washington, D. C., and that the tea plantations near Summerville, South Carolina, are doing well. “There is no trouble about growing the plant, but the question of profitable culture for the manufacture of tea is quite another thing.… The purpose of the Department of Agriculture … is to cheapen the present methods or possibly suggest the placing of the teas on the market in a wholly different shape from what is done at present.” We may be able to supply our own demands for tea, but it is not likely that the same will be true of coffee and chocolate.
HOUSEHOLD BEVERAGES.
At the breakfast table of a friend not long ago I heard the gentleman of the house remark over his fragrant coffee:
“I laughed at my wife when she went into the cooking school last summer, I thought her a model cook before; but for some reason she has improved. I never tasted such coffee as this.”
My hostess answered: “The reason is simple enough. I had always cooked by rule before. I learned in my studies in cookery to reason. It makes a great difference.”