To keep this black oil from the pot it must be daily washed (not rinsed), scalded, and dried. Each piece of a French coffee-pot should be separately dried before it is put away. If packed together wet, the strainers will in time give a metallic taste. Another reason for great care is that, without it, the strainers get clogged and the coffee will not go through.
If you find your coffee-pot has been neglected, put a piece of washing soda as large as a hickory-nut into hot water; set the strainers in it; let them stand on the stove for hours; put the same in the coffee-pot; then rub and brush both till the wire gauze is clear and all the black removed; then run boiling water slowly through, and dry it. Let the care be daily afterwards. The grease will not form, nor will the gauze fill up, if a pint or so of boiling water is poured through every morning and it is dried before being put away. Cold water is worse than useless, as it sets the oil. Sometimes the coffee-pot is put away exactly as it leaves the table, with left-over coffee in it. This should never be.
In drying the coffee-pot, or warming it, be careful not to let it get too hot, or there will be the flavor of burnt coffee to spoil the beverage for that occasion.
THE STORY OF COFFEE.
Its History, Properties and Powers, as described by Hester M. Poole.
IT would be almost as desirable to know who drank the first decoction of coffee as "who tamed the first wild steed," or "who first conquered fire." Perhaps, like Charles Lamb's roast pig, it was first parched through the burning of a rude cabin, near which grew the odorous and inviting shrub. Some of the roasted berries may have fallen into a calabash of water, whose primitive possessor, weary and thirsty through vain efforts to save his shelter, drank unwittingly of the decoction, and, in the bewitching cup, made a great discovery while drowning his sense of misfortune. All great benefits to mankind have their origin in obscurity. It will never be known whether coffee was first used in Abyssinia, Arabia, or Ethiopia, as the plant grows wild in each of these countries. Its name is derived from Kaffa, in Eastern Africa, and a Mahometan legend ascribes its discovery to a party of dervishes, who, for some misdemeanor, were banished from the city of Mocha on or about the year 1250. Repairing to the mountains of Yemen, they came near starvation before finding that, upon chewing the wild coffee berry, their strength was marvellously supported and hunger relieved during enforced fasts and vigils. The prior, Sheykh Omer, began to steep the berries in water and to dry a store of the fruit for sustenance during long marches. Its use spread to other dervishes, then to Mecca and Mocha, Damascus and Aleppo, till, in the year 1550, coffee became the favorite drink in Constantinople, in which city coffee-houses were soon after opened. If Prior Omer has not yet been canonized, he should certainly fill the first vacant niche, for, surely, no man ever conferred greater enjoyment upon his fellows. Yet, during a long period—perhaps for ages—the wild tribes in the interior of Africa had before that date used the berry, and the incident of the burning of the primitive hut is neither far-fetched nor improbable.
As the mosques were comparatively deserted for the coffee-houses, the Mufti was petitioned to issue edicts against the use of a beverage so delicious as to cause the sons of the faithful to forget the call to prayer, and for a little while it was a secret and stolen delight. Seeing that it could not be suppressed, the priests, with an eye to the main chance—common to the powers that be in all nations—wisely decided to impose a high tax upon the berry, and the coffee bean, from that day to this, has been the daily inspiration of the dreamy, sensuous, and fate-worshiping Turk.
It was not until about the year 1670 that coffee-drinking became popular in France, though infrequent travelers had brought with them from the East a few pounds of the curious berry. At that time Solomon Aga was sent from the Sublime Porte to the court of Louis XIV., and he became very soon the rage, through the splendid and unique entertainments at which he figured as host. Costly Eastern stuffs, at that time seldom found in the elegant capital, displayed the rich and harmonious coloring of which the Turks are masters. Divans and cushions of embroidered velvet shot with gold, prayer rugs of every kind and device, vestments of many hues, bedizened with jewels and diamonds—all these made him the magnate of the city.