The first mention of coffee in our statute books was 1660. In the year 1688, Mr. Ray affirms, that London might rival Grand Cairo in the number of its coffee-houses.[40]
[40] Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary.
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE COFFEE TREE.
The tree which produces coffee contains ten species, chiefly natives of the East Indies, South America, and the Polynesian isles. The only species, however, that we have to notice in the present work is the coffee Arabica, of which there are two varieties, though both are sold in our shops as Turkey coffee, and possess similar qualities.
The tree seldom rises more than 16 or 18 feet high, with an erect main stem, covered with a lightish brown bark: the leaves are oblong-ovate, and pointed; the flowers are set in clusters; they are of a pure white, and possess a very pleasant odour, but their duration is very transient. The fruit resembles a cherry, and grows in clusters, ranged along the branches under the axillæ of the leaves, which are of a laurel hue, but rather longer than a laurel leaf. It is an ever-green, and makes a beautiful appearance at every season in the year, but particularly when it is in flower.
The coffee tree has of late years been much cultivated in America, but the coffee which has been thence brought to Europe has been very little esteemed. This great difference in the goodness many have attributed to the soil in which it grows, and therefore have supposed it impossible for the inhabitants of the British islands ever to cultivate this commodity to any real advantage; but this is certainly a mistake, as is affirmed by several persons of credit, who have resided abroad, who say, that the berries which they have gathered from the trees and roasted themselves, were as well flavoured as any of the coffee brought from Mocha; so that the fault is in the drying, and bringing over; for if in the drying of the berries they be laid in rooms near the sugar-works, or near the house where rum is distilled, the berries soon imbibe the surrounding effluvia, which will greatly alter their flavour. In like manner the coffee brought in the same ships with rum and sugar, were the coffee ever so good, would hereby be entirely altered.
Raw coffee materially becomes ameliorated by age. It should be kept in bags, or vessels permeable to air, and in a dry, or rather warm place.
BEST METHOD OF MAKING COFFEE.
The general use of tea among us, has caused the inhabitants of Great Britain to be in general far inferior than their neighbours on the continent in the art of preparing the beverage called coffee. The coloured water commonly drank in England under this name, is as much the object of derision to foreigners, as their soup maigre is to us; hence a lively French writer says, “The English do not care about the quality of coffee, if they can but get enough of it.” Coffee certainly is almost universally made stronger on the other side of the channel than it is here.
Count Rumford, in the eighteenth of his Essays has entered into a minute, elaborate, and useful analysis of the powers of coffee, and the best means of infusing it for dietetic purposes. He remarks, that among the numerous luxuries of the table, unknown to our forefathers, coffee may be considered as one of the most valuable. Its taste is very agreeable, and its flavour uncommonly so; but its principal excellence depends on its salubrity, and on its exhilarating quality. It excites cheerfulness, without intoxication; and the pleasing flow of spirits which it occasions, lasts many hours, and is never followed by sadness, languor, or debility. It diffuses over the whole frame a glow of health, and a sense of ease and well-being which is extremely delightful: existence is felt to be a positive enjoyment, and the mental powers are awakened, and rendered uncommonly active. After some other judicious observations on the valuable properties of coffee, and the uncertainty of the result in the common methods of preparing it, the Count proceeds with his subject.