(Enter Slowpoke and Betty, singing—as chorus—with Tenor.)
Trio: The cat will not give up the mouse, old maids continue "coffee-sisters!"—the mother loves her drink of coffee—grandma, too, is a coffee fiend—who now will blame the daughter!
The Most Beautiful Coffee House in the World
The Caffè Pedrocchi in Padua, Italy, empire period, erected by the poor lemonade vendor and coffee seller, Antonio Pedrocchi.
Research has discovered only one piece of sculpture associated with coffee—the statue of the Austrian hero Kolschitzky, the patron saint of the Vienna coffee houses. It graces the second-floor corner of a house in the Favoriten Strasse, where it was erected in his honor by the Coffee Makers' Guild of Vienna. The great "brother-heart" is shown in the attitude of pouring coffee into cups on a tray from an oriental service pot.
The celebrated Caffè Pedrocchi, the center of life in the city of Padua, Italy, in the early part of the nineteenth century, is one of the most beautiful buildings erected in Italy. Its use is apparent at first glance. It was begun in 1816, opened June 9, 1831, and completed in 1842. Antonio Pedrocchi (1776–1852), an obscure Paduan coffee-house keeper, tormented by a desire for glory, conceived the idea of building the most beautiful coffee house in the world, and carried it out.
Artists and craftsmen of all ages since the discovery of coffee have brought their genius into play to fashion various forms of apparatus associated with the preparation of the coffee drink. Coffee roasters and grinders have been made of brass, silver, and gold; coffee mortars, of bronze; and coffee making and serving pots, of beautiful copper, pewter, pottery, porcelain, and silver designs.
In the Peter collection in the United States National Museum there is to be seen a fine specimen of the Bagdad coffee pot made of beaten copper and used for making and serving; also, a beautiful Turkish coffee set. In the Metropolitan Museum in New York there are some beautiful specimens of Persian and Egyptian ewers in faience, probably used for coffee service. Also, in American and continental museums are to be seen many examples of seventeenth-century German, Dutch, and English bronze mortars and pestles used for "braying" coffee beans to make coffee powder.