His disciples soon discovered a brightness and exhilaration, an unusual "snap," in the good man's sermons, and they watched him and also discovered Coffee!
The author refuses to take the responsibility of more than the discovery of the above story. Coffee was, however, introduced into Arabia by the Sheikh Dabhani in 1470. It was taken to Constantinople about 1554, and about a hundred years later coffee-houses and cafés were regular and habitual daily resorts in London and Paris.
As usual with stimulants of all kinds, the watchful eye of a moral Government discovered something objectionable in coffee, and Charles II in 1675 imposed heavy taxes, or rather forbade the use of it altogether.
There was in 1718 a coffee-plant in the botanical gardens at Amsterdam, and in that year some of its seeds were sent to Surinam, in Dutch Guiana. Apparently the millions of shrubs in the enormous coffee plantations of the New World are all descended from this particular Amsterdam plant.
This New World coffee is by far the most important supply. Brazil alone exports about £19,000,000 worth of coffee, and that from the New World forms about 82 per cent of the total world's production.
The story of coffee in Ceylon is a tragedy. There happened to be in the jungle a particular fungus (Hemileia vastatrix) which got its living on the leaves of wild plants belonging to the coffee order (Rubiaceæ) and others. When Arabian coffee was introduced, the fungus began to attack its leaves. The result was the utter ruin of the industry. It is said that about £15,000,000 was lost by this Hemileia disease in Ceylon.
The plantations require a great deal of care. The shrubs have to be carefully pruned, and the preparation of the coffee bean is not a very easy matter. It is really the seed of a bright red, fleshy berry. The pulp or flesh has to be removed, and also both a horny skin, the "parchment," and a thin delicate membrane, the "silverskin," in which the seed is enclosed. Coffee is not nearly so much used in Britain as in some other places, and particularly in Holland, for the Dutch drink about twenty-one pounds per head in the year, whilst we in Great Britain only use about three-quarters of a pound.
It is in fact not very easy to make good coffee, and it is absolutely necessary to grind and roast the beans just before using them. Very often also too little coffee is used.
Tinned coffee is often adulterated with either Chicory or Endives, but those are only the two most important impurities, for burnt sugar, biscuits, locust-beans, date-stones, rye, malt, and other substances are ground up and mixed with coffee.
The use of chicory is, however, more or less recognized. It is the roots which are ground up and mixed with it. They contain no caffeine, which is the active part of the coffee bean, and are quite harmless. At one time chicory was grown in Essex and other English counties, and was a distinctly profitable crop.