“Now tell me please about coffee, also,” I begged.
Fil’s father continued:
“The coffee comes from another low bush. You choose a hillside, for, although the plant likes our heavy rains in the Philippines, it does not like to keep its roots long in water. It wants to drain them and to feel the warm sun. The leaves are long and glossy; the blossoms are waxy white. The fragrance is richer than rose sweetened with sugar. The fruit is like a scarlet cherry; each contains two seeds. These two seeds are the coffee bean of commerce and of the breakfast table. They are ground in a small mill, as you know.”
“How were the beans first discovered?” I inquired.
Fil’s father smiled and told this story: “One day a shepherd noticed that his goats, which had eaten the cherries off a coffee bush, danced about in high excitement as though they, instead of their master, were going to a fiesta. Then the shepherd ate the berries, too, and felt stimulated himself. That is how coffee in time came to our breakfast table. Instead of eating the berry, we grind it and steep it, and drink the liquor.”
“But, father, the seeds are light colored, and not deep brown, when you open the fruit,” said Fil.
“I know,” replied Fil’s father. “We roast the seeds in an oven, to get rid of the moisture and to preserve and ripen the stimulating oils.”
“Thank you all;” I exclaimed, “now I will behold a whole tropical story of geography and commerce, every time I look into a grocer’s window at home.”
