This shrub (Coffea Arabica, Fig. 9) is from fifteen to twenty feet in height. The leaves are four or five inches long, and two inches broad, smooth, green, and glossy on the upper surface; and the flowers, which grow in bunches at the base of the leaves, are white and sweet-scented. The berries or fruit are of a somewhat oval shape, about the size of a cherry, and of dark red colour, when ripe. Each of these contains two cells, and each cell has a single seed, which is the coffee as we see it before it undergoes the process of roasting.
Coffee is an article of only late introduction. To the Greeks and Romans it was wholly unknown. Its use appears to have originated in Ethiopia; and, in 1554, it is stated to have been first introduced into Constantinople, whence it was gradually adopted in the western parts of Europe. In 1652 Mr. Daniel Edwards, a Turkey merchant, brought with him to England a Greek servant, whose name was Pasqua, and who understood the methods of roasting coffee, and making it into a beverage. This man was the first who publicly sold coffee in this country; and he kept a house for that purpose in George Yard, Lombard Street. At Paris, coffee was nearly unknown until the arrival of the Turkish ambassador, Solomon Aga, in 1669; about three years after which the first coffee-house is said to have been established in that city. The coffee shrub was originally planted in Jamaica in 1732.
Great attention is paid to the culture of coffee in Arabia. The trees are raised from seed sown in nurseries, and afterwards planted out, in moist and shady situations, on sloping grounds, or at the foot of mountains. Care is taken to conduct little rills of water to the roots of the trees, which at certain seasons require to be constantly surrounded with moisture. As soon as the fruit is nearly ripe, the water is turned off, lest the fruit should be rendered too succulent. In places much exposed to the south, the trees are planted in rows, and are shaded from the otherwise too intense heat of the sun, by a branching kind of poplar tree. When the fruit has attained its maturity, cloths are placed under the trees, and, upon these, the labourers shake it down. They afterwards spread the berries on mats, and expose them to the sun to dry. The husk is then broken off by large and heavy rollers of wood or iron. When the coffee has been thus cleared of its husk, it is again dried in the sun, and lastly winnowed with a large fan, for the purpose of clearing it from the pieces of husks with which it is intermingled. A pound of coffee is generally more than the produce of one tree; but a tree in great vigour will produce three or four pounds.
The best coffee is imported from Mocha, a town on the eastern bank of the Red Sea. This, which in Europe is called Mocha and Turkey coffee, bears a higher price than any which our colonists are able to raise; owing, as it is supposed, to the difference of climate and soil in which it is grown. It is packed in large bales, each containing a number of smaller bales; and, when good, it appears fresh, and of a greenish olive colour. The coffee next in esteem to this is grown in Java and the East Indies, and that of lowest price in the West Indies. When stowed in ships with rum, pepper, or other articles, it is said that coffee contracts a rank and unpleasant flavour, and this has been assigned as a reason of the inferiority of such as is imported from our own plantations.
The quantity of coffee annually supplied by Arabia is supposed to be upwards of fourteen millions of pounds. Before the commencement of the French Revolution the island of St. Domingo alone exported more than seventy millions of pounds per annum.
Almost all the Mahometans drink coffee at least twice a day, very hot, and without sugar. The excellence of coffee depends, in a great measure, on the skill and attention that are exercised in the roasting of it. If it be too little roasted, it is devoid of flavour; and if too much, it becomes acrid, and has a disagreeable burnt taste. In England the operation of roasting is usually performed in a cylindrical tin box, perforated with numerous holes, and fixed upon a spit which runs lengthwise through the centre, and is turned by a jack.
In a medical view, coffee is said to be of use in assisting digestion, promoting the natural secretions, and preventing or removing a disposition to drowsiness. It has been found highly beneficial in relieving some cases of severe head-ach.
The outer pulpy part of the berry, and the inner membrane, which immediately invests the seeds, are used by the Arabians, and of these the former is much esteemed, and constitutes what is called coffee à la sultane.
64. STRAMONIUM, or THORN-APPLE (Datura stramonium), is an annual plant, with thick round stalks, somewhat triangular leaves, jagged or toothed at the edges, large white and funnel-shaped flowers, and seed vessels large and beset with spines.
Although originally a native of America, stramonium is now a frequent weed on dunghills, and in cultivated ground of our own country; and, when once introduced into a garden, it is difficult to be eradicated. Its smell is exceedingly unpleasant, and its qualities are so pernicious, when taken internally, as to occasion giddiness, torpor, and sometimes even death. The seeds are particularly injurious. Notwithstanding this, the inspissated or dried juice of the leaves has been considered a valuable remedy in epileptic and other convulsive disorders. An ointment prepared from them affords relief in external inflammations; and smoking the dried leaves has lately been recommended in asthmatic complaints.