Bakers, confectioners and hotels use eggs in this form, which is an important saving at seasons when they are dear in the shell.
Extract of beef, although a liquid, is condensed beef; the vanilla bean is now concentrated into an essence and cocoanuts are condensed by desiccation; cider and lime juice are also condensed, so that a spoonful mixed with water makes a pint of the original liquid.
Finally, some genius has condensed coffee into lozenges weighing only fifteen grains, one of which makes a generous cup of coffee. It is merely necessary to put the lozenge or tablet in the cup, pour boiling water on it and the coffee is made.
What a boon for the housewife as well as the camper-out, the more so since one hundred lozenges, weighing a little more than four ounces, will make one hundred cups.
The processes by which coffee is thus concentrated are very interesting. To begin with, the beans are roasted in an enormous oven and ground in a huge mill. Then they are put into a great iron vessel, which is nothing more nor less than a gigantic coffee-pot, holding two hundred and forty pounds at a time. Hundreds of gallons of filtered water are pumped into the coffee-pot, which acts on the drip principle, and the infusion is drawn off to an evaporating tank. A steam pump keeps the air exhausted from this tank, so that the coffee is in vacuo, being heated meanwhile to a high temperature by steam pipes. The water it contains rapidly passes off, and the coffee is of about the consistency of molasses when it is taken out. It is poured into trays of enameled ware, and these trays are placed on shelves in another evaporator.
When the trays are removed, a short time later, the coffee is a dry solid, which is scraped off the trays, ground to powder, and moulded into lozenges.
[ AN UNFORTUNATE EXPERIMENT.]
Some weeks ago we chronicled in Golden Days the particulars of a competition race in Europe, which was unique in its rules and intended to be scientific in its character. The Emperors of Austria and Germany arranged for a contest between the officers of their respective armies in the way of a long-distance ride between Berlin and Vienna, Austrian officers to ride from Vienna to Berlin, and German officers from Berlin to Vienna.
This entire distance of four hundred miles was to be covered in the shortest possible time, each rider using but one horse and choosing any route which suited his fancy.