The Marvelous Coffee Package
It is doubtful if in all nature there is a more cunningly devised food package than the fruit of the coffee tree. It seems as if Good Mother Nature had said: "This gift of Heaven is too precious to put up in any ordinary parcel. I shall design for it a casket worthy of its divine origin. And the casket shall have an inner seal that shall safeguard it from enemies, and that shall preserve its goodness for man until the day when, transported over the deserts and across the seas, it shall be broken open to be transmuted by the fires of friendship, and made to yield up its aromatic nectar in the Great Drink of Democracy."
To this end she caused to grow from the heart of the jasmine-like flower, that first herald of its coming, a marvelous berry which, as it ripens, turns first from green to yellow, then to reddish, to deep crimson, and at last to a royal purple.
Specimens of Copper Covers for Pulper Cylinders
1—For Arabian coffee (Coffea arabica). 2—For Liberian coffee (Coffea liberica). 3—Also for Arabian. 4—For Coffea canephora. 5—For Coffea robusta. 6—For larger Arabian, and for Coffea Maragogipe.
The coffee fruit is very like a cherry, though somewhat elongated and having in its upper end a small umbilicus. But mark with what ingenuity the package has been constructed! The outer wrapping is a thin, gossamer-like skin which encloses a soft pulp, sweetish to the taste, but of a mucilaginous consistency. This pulp in turn is wrapped about the inner-seal—called the parchment, because of its tough texture. The parchment encloses the magic bean in its last wrapping, a delicate silver-colored skin, not unlike fine spun silk or the sheerest of tissue papers. And this last wrapping is so tenacious, so true to its guardianship function, that no amount of rough treatment can dislodge it altogether; for portions of it cling to the bean even into the roasting and grinding processes.
